Suppose you own, or are the President of Supercareful Employers, Inc (" Supercareful"). You have long had a policy of asking on your job applications whether your applicants have ever been convicted of a crime, and tell them to check either the "yes" or "no" box. You also have included in your application a warning that anyone who knowingly lies on their application can either be rejected for or terminated from employment with Supercareful. Let us now suppose that Andy Applicant checked "No", but you ran a background check and found out that seven years ago he was convicted for drug possession. You reject him for the job, not, you argue, because of his criminal history, but because he lied on his application. Since you included language in your application that allows you to reject or terminate anyone who knowingly lies on their application, you may now do so, right? Depending on where you are employing people, not only might you not be allowed to do so, but you may also be subject to fines and/or lawsuits. Let's take a look at how and why that is so.

Click here to read the entire post on The Emplawyerologist.