NAPBS Pursuing Litigation Against District Court of Benton County - Bentonville Division
The National Association of Professional Background Screeners, a nonprofit trade association established to represent the interests of background screening companies, has announced its intent to pursue litigation against the Court of Benton County - Bentonville Division. The court has begun to deny requests from background screeners to obtain publicly available information and the NAPBS has called the Court Clerk's decision to to deny these requests a "gross misinterpretation" of the State's Supreme Court's Administrative Order 19.
Interestingly enough, the Arkansas State Supreme Court's Administrative Order 19 expressly states the purposes of this order are to: (1) promote accessibility to court records. While the NAPBS reports attempts have been made to have access to the public information restored through other means, the Arkansas Governor, Attorney General, and Legislation were not willing to address the issue or the interpretation of the Court Order of the clerk.
Ten Arkansas District Courts have denied access to public record information. However, seven of the ten courts have already resumed access to records after the NAPBS legal representation has already sent demand letters. These counties include: Cleburne, Carlisle, Poinsett, Little Rock District, Little Rock-Polaski County, Clinton, and Clarendon.
Bentonville, Craighead County-Lake City, and Craighead County-Jonesboro Division, however, have not.
The official complaint was filed July 20th.
For more information, please see the Arkansas State's Supreme Court's Administrative Order 19: Available Here
The complaint filed by the NAPBS, National Association of Professional Background Screeners v. Jennifer Jones: Available Here
