How much time you got, Dan? This is one of my hot buttons.
I'm not yelling at you; I'm emphasizing. Don't mistake the two.
THERE IS NO LAW IN ANY OF THE FIFTY STATES THAT RESTRICTS WHAT INFORMATION AN EMPLOYER MAY GIVE IN A REFERENCE CHECK. NOTHING WHATSOEVER IN ANY LAW, FEDERAL OR STATE, IN ANY STATE, SAYS THAT EMPLOYERS MAY ONLY GIVE DATES OF EMPLOYMENT, SALARY AND REHIRE STATUS. THE ONLY RESTRICTION IS THAT THE INFORMATION GIVEN OUT MUST EITHER BE TRUE OR WHAT THE EMPLOYER HONESTLY BELIEVES TO BE TRUE.
How's that?
There is an obsession with some employers and with many corporate attorneys to the effect that if they give any information out whatsoever and the applicant doesn't get the job, they will be sued for slander.
Balderdash. First of all, truth is a defense to slander. (I'll address your particular example in a minute.) If the employee was a bad manager, it's not slander to say he was a bad manager. If the employee came in late every third day, it's not slander to say that.
I post on another board where most of the regular responders are, like me, HR managers, directors, associates, and other HR positions. For the last three years I have had, on that board, a standing challenge for anyone to provide ANY case in ANY court where an employer has been *successfully* sued because they provided a truthful, but negative, reference. After three years, no one has been able to provide one. (I'm not talking about cases where the employer clearly lied or at least, was clearly misleading - those employers deserve what they get. I'm also not talking about employers who may have been sued and chose to settle rather than fight, since there's no way to tell what a judge or jury would have said. I'm talking about a case where an employer offered a truthful reference, was sued for it, went to court and lost the case.)
I recently asked that same board whether ANY of them had ever been sued, successfully or unsuccessfully, because of a reference they had given. No one had. NONE OF THEM (and there are dozens of regular responders from all over the US) had ever had such a suit filed against them. In fact, only one of them had even heard of such a suit. In that instance, a friend of mine, "Barbara" from that board had recently attended the national HR conference. In one of the seminars, that question was asked. Barbara said that ONE person raised his hand - and the company had won the suit. The seminar director said that in all the times she'd given that talk and asked that question, this was the FIRST time anyone had ever said yes.
So that's probably three hundred or more HR managers from all over the US, and in the ONLY case that any of them had even HEARD OF, the suing employee lost.
There are even some situations in which NOT giving an honest reference can get the employee in trouble. Only this morning someone reminded me of a case where a school district gave a good or neutral reference to someone who had been molesting the kids. You can only imagine what happened to that employer when the guy was hired, went back to his old tricks, and his new employer found out that the old employer knew about this and had not warned them.
I don't want you to get the impression that I'm advocating that an employer indiscriminately give out whatever information they want. There is some danger if the employer is not careful about what is said. In your example, or any example where criminal activity is involved, you need to be careful what you say if you don't have sufficient proof. If you catch the guy red-handed with his hand in the till, but you decide not to prosecute for whatever reason, he can't sue for slander because you say he was caught stealing - he WAS caught stealing. But if you suspect an employee but have no actual proof, you're better to stay neutral. Anything more than, "We fired him because we had reason to doubt his honesty" could come back and bite you in the butt if it should prove that your belief was mistaken, and even that much had better wait till you are ABSOLUTELY sure.
BUT THERE IS NO LAW THAT REQUIRES YOU TO LIMIT REFERENCES TO DATES OF EMPLOYMENT ETC.
After all, think about it. If there were no circumstances in which you could do anything but verify dates and salary, why even bother checking references at all? You can verify dates of employment and salary with the employee's paystubs. Rehire status is meaningless; I know of employers who will not ever rehire an employee no matter what the circumstances and no matter how good the employee was. (I do not agree with this policy, but one of my former employers used it; they got bitten by the first and last employee they ever rehired and were never willing to take the chance again.) In a company like that, rehire status means nothing since no one would ever be rehired.
I can think of one other situation where I would agree that limiting references would be a good idea, and it's probably what your corporate attorneys had in mind. Knowing how to give an honest reference without crossing the line (and a line does exist) is something of an art. In a large chain with many locations and many managers, not everyone is going to know how to do it. On the other hand, the HR department, which most likely DOES know how to do it, doesn't know the employees. So in that instances, if I were the corporate HR for a chain like that, I'd either make a rule that ALL references had to be done by HR (and then give limited information since I didn't know the employee) or else make a rule that only dates of employment and salary info could be given out so that the managers didn't accidently cross the line.
BUT THAT IS A COMPANY POLICY, NOT A LAW.
Whew. Betcha weren't expecting all that, were you?
Clear as mud?
Edited to include: in the post on this thread, the poster has admitted to what happened. Slander is FALSE statement; she has admitted that it is true. Therefore, any information the employer gives out is not going to be slander.