Employers, more than ever before, need to protect themselves against accidents and crimes committed by their employees. With negligent hiring, lawsuits, training costs, workplace violence and theft on the rise, pre-employment screening as well as taking the correct pre-employment screening steps are no longer an option, but rather a necessity for businesses.

An Illinois state police officer is suing a trucking company and one of its employees, claiming his jaw was broken after the man punched him in the face during an arrest.

The police officer, Michael Link, was attempting to arrest Ronald Fraction for driving under the influence and driving a commercial motor vehicle with a disqualified license when Fraction “struck Plaintiff in the face with his fist breaking Plaintiff’s jaw in two places,” according to the lawsuit.

Fraction was driving a company vehicle when he stopped at a bar, intending to complete his job after he left. Link responded to the scene of an accident wherein Fraction had become stuck on the side of the road on November 22, 2007.

Link is suing because of great pain, mental anguish and the time he missed from his job, including overtime. The suit states that TransAm Trucking failed to perform a background check on Fraction. Had they done so, they would have picked up his history of drunk driving and his prior record of attacking police officers.

Link is seeking $100,000, costs, attorney fees and whatever other relief the court sees fit to give him.

A proper background check would have cost TransAm Trucking a substantial amount less than this lawsuit.

Tags: driving history, driving record, drunk driving, employment screening, lawsuit, negligent hiring, trucking company

This entry was posted on Friday, December 5th, 2008 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.