What’s in a middle name? Read about David Smith’s background check snafu

What’s in a middle name? Read about David Smith’s background check snafu | Ars Technica
"Getting a new job is hard enough these days, and it's even harder when your prospective employer thinks you're a convicted criminal, even though you're not.
And if you have a name like David Smith, the odds increase that you'll be mistaken for a convict because so many people named David Smith are out there.
Exacerbating the situation is when background check giants like LexisNexis Screening Solutions claim they should be forgiven for bungling a background check because they were following "industry standards." 
And the industry standard, LexisNexis says, means it doesn't always have to run a middle name through the system—even when there are some 125,000 people with the name "David Smith" in the United States.
That was, in part, LexisNexis' defense to a lawsuit brought by a man named David Alan Smith.
Smith claimed LexisNexis was willful and negligent when the company erroneously fingered him as a convict.
He also claims LexisNexis violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Smith was applying to be a delivery driver for Great Lakes Wine and Spirits in 2012.
As a condition of being a driver, his prospective Michigan employer required a background check. LexisNexis conducts some 10 million background checks per year and claims 99.8 percent are never disputed.
To get the background check done, Smith provided Great Lakes with his first, middle, and last name, Social Security number, driver's license number, date of birth, sex, street address, and phone number. Great Lakes did not provide LexisNexis with Smith's middle name, however.
Here's what happened, according to a recent decision (PDF) by the US 6th Circuit Court of Appeals:
Lexis searched its database for criminal records that matched Smith’s first name, last name, and date of birth. 
The search returned two sources—Bay County, Florida Circuit and County Courts, and the Florida Department of Corrections—as having criminal records for a David Smith born on March 12, 1965. This, however, was David Oscar Smith, not the David Alan Smith who applied for the job with Great Lakes. 
The records were for David Oscar Smith's uttering a forged instrument. 
Because Lexis did not receive a middle name from Great Lakes, it could not exclude the middle name "Oscar" from the results. 
The criminal records did not contain a Social Security number, so Lexis could not exclude them on that basis. 
Because the criminal records matched Smith's first name, last name, and date of birth, Lexis included them in the report it provided to Great Lakes.
What's more, the credit report LexisNexis obtained on Smith listed him as "David A. Smith." LexisNexis, however, claimed there "was nothing unreasonable in LexisNexis not cross-checking information in a criminal background report and information in a separate credit report."
After he was denied the delivery job, Smith disputed the criminal background check.
LexisNexis figured out its bungle, and corrected the background report.
Because of the mishap, Smith was delayed six weeks before he could start the delivery job.
Smith sued (PDF) LexisNexis, claiming a breach of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) for allegedly failing to follow reasonable procedures that would assure accuracy in the information it reported to Great Lakes..."