Mitsui Home America LLC Agrees to $100,000 Settlement to Resolve Fair Chance Act Case

Sacramento – The Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), California’s civil rights agency, announced today the settlement of a complaint against Mitsui Home America LLC, a construction company specializing in prefabricated building components. The complaint alleged that the company violated California’s Fair Chance Act, which seeks to reduce barriers to employment for individuals with criminal histories.

According to the complaint, the company did not provide required notices to job seekers with criminal histories and denied jobs to applicants whose conviction history did not have a direct and adverse relationship to the job duties. The complaint was on behalf of a class of 7 applicants who were denied positions between 2018 and 2019.

“California employers must consider the individual circumstances of a job applicant with a criminal history, rather than acting on stereotypes and generalizations,” said DFEH Director Kevin Kish.

In addition to the $100,000 settlement amount, Mitsui Home America agreed to take steps to ensure compliance with the Act’s requirements in the future, including training those involved in the hiring process, developing new procedures for reviewing applicants’ criminal history, and agreeing to DFEH monitoring for three years.

DFEH’s has developed a Fair Chance Act Toolkit with information for applicants and employers about complying with the Act.

The California Civil Rights Department (CRD) is the state agency charged with enforcing California’s civil rights laws. CRD’s mission is to protect the people of California from unlawful discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and state-funded programs and activities, and from hate violence and human trafficking. For more information, visit calcivilrights.ca.gov.

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