I. BACKGROUND
LB 959, passed by the Nebraska Legislature during the 2012 legislative session, allows employers to share more information with prospective employers about current and former employees with reduced threat of incurring legal liability. Upon receiving written consent from the prospective employee, LB 959 permits current or former employers to disclose relevant workplace and job-related information. The law became effective on July 19, 2012.
II. WRITTEN CONSENT REQUIREMENT
In order to obtain the protections under LB 959, employers must first obtain written consent from the employee. The law requires the employee’s written consent to be on a separate form from the application form or, if included in the application form, to be in bold letters and in larger type face than the largest type face in the text of the application form. The consent form must state, at a minimum, language similar to the following:
I, (applicant), hereby give consent to any and all prior employers of mine to provide information with regard to my employment with prior employers to (prospective employer).
The consent must be dated and signed by the applicant and is valid for no longer than six months.
III. IMMUNITY PROVISION
LB 959 provides immunity from civil liability to an employer who discloses the following information about a current or former employee’s employment history to a prospective employer of the current or former employee upon receipt of written consent from the current or former employee:
The law extends the immunity to any current or former employee, agent or other representative of the employer who is authorized to provide and who provides information in accordance with the provisions of the law. The law further provides that an employer disclosing such information is presumed to be acting in good faith and immune from civil liability for the disclosure or any consequences of the disclosure unless the presumption of good faith is rebutted upon a showing by a preponderance of the evidence that the information disclosed was false, and the employer had knowledge of its falsity or acted with malice or reckless disregard for the truth.
The provisions of the law apply only to causes of action accruing on and after the effective date of the act (July 19, 2012) and the immunity provided does not apply when an employer discriminates or retaliates against an employee because the employee has exercised or is believed to have exercised any federal or state statutory right or undertaken any action encouraged by the public policy of this state.