Pa. employers can’t reject job applicants who disclose their criminal history, court rules

A Pennsylvania law prohibiting employment discrimination against people with criminal convictions has gotten a boost from a federal appeals court.

A three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that regardless of how a prospective employer learned about an applicant’s criminal background, Pennsylvania law prohibits rejecting the application as long as the crime was not related to the job for which they are applying.

The Jan. 28 ruling resolves a dispute in federal cases over the wording of a 1980 law that some employers argued applied only when the criminal information came from official files of state agencies.

The Third Circuit opinion came in the case of Rodney Phath, a Philadelphia resident who in 2023 applied to work as a truck driver at Central Transport’s Montgomery County facility. Phath had experience as a truck driver and held the needed license and credential.

He also had a 2008 criminal conviction for armed robbery, and had served six years in prison.

Phath told the Michigan-based trucking company during an interview about the conviction and was immediately rejected from the job.

In a 2024 federal lawsuit, Phath accused Central Trucking of violating Pennsylvania’s Criminal History Record Information Act.

The company didn’t deny that it rejected Phath because of his criminal background. The law prohibits employers using “information collected by criminal justice agencies,” Central Trucking argued, and did not apply because Phath disclosed his conviction himself.

District Judge John R. Padova agreed, and tossed out the complaint in December 2024.

Because the law bans employers from obtaining formal criminal records and using the information in them for hiring decisions, it did not apply when Phath self-disclosed his criminal background, the judge concluded.

Padova wasn’t the first judge to interpret the law literally, as applying only when an official file from a government agency sits on an employer’s desk — or at least in a computer desktop.

A Georgetown Law professor, Brian Wolfman, offered to assist in Phath’s appeal with his students.

The literal interpretation renders the law “meaningless,” the appeal argued, and creates a Catch 22. If an applicant with a criminal record discloses it, they are no longer protected. But if they don’t mention it when asked, they can be rejected for lying in the application process.

“If that’s true the act would have no force at all, and that can’t be right,” Wolfman said in an interview.

Phath won his appeal last week, with Third Circuit Judges Stephanos Bibas, Anthony Joseph Scirica, and D. Brooks Smith finding that the law prohibits prospective employers from using information that is included in a criminal history file regardless of how it came about.

“The employer just has to receive the information,” Bibas, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, wrote in the opinion.

The judge’s opinion could be appealed to an expanded panel of the court, which has the discretion to pick its cases. But if it stands it would be binding precedent in Pennsylvania’s federal court. The case now returns to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where it will head toward trial.

The attorney who represented Central Trucking in the appeal did not respond to a request for comment.

Phath’s lawsuit was filed in federal court because Central Trucking is based out of state. But Pennsylvania employees suing in-state employers won’t have the benefit of the binding ruling, although it can be cited in an effort to convince local judges.

The one in four Philadelphians who have a criminal record also are protected by the city’s Fair Chance Hiring Ordinance, which was updated in the fall.

The ordinance prohibits employers from considering a misdemeanor after four years from an arrest or release from incarceration, and seven years for a felony. Before that time period, it allows rejecting applicants based on the criminal history only if the employer can show a specific record leads to a specific risk related to that specific job.

Jamie Gullen, managing attorney of Community Legal Services’ employment unit, said the Philadelphia ordinance is one of the strongest in the country.

Her unit represents 2,000 people a year who face employment barriers because of a criminal record. The most effective way to prevent this type of discrimination is to seal criminal records, Gullen says.

The Clean Slate Act, which allows people with certain convictions to have their criminal records sealed by filing court petitions, has long waiting periods and doesn’t cover every offense. So Gullen was glad to see an appeals court acknowledge the barriers people with a criminal history face in the job market.

“Fair hiring laws are a really important piece of the puzzle,” the attorney said.