The 91st General Assembly passed a bill that allows employees to bring their concealed handguns to their employer’s private parking lot.
That along with other legislation that made it out of the 2017 regular session caught the eye of attorney H. Wayne Young, a partner at Friday Eldredge & Clark and a member of its labor and employment law practice group. He recently sat down with Arkansas Business at the Little Rock firm’s office to discuss the new laws.
“Guns were a big issue,” Young said of the regular session.
The intent of SB 37, now Act 1071, is to reinforce and protect the right of each citizen “to carry and store a handgun in his or her vehicle anyplace where the private motor vehicle is otherwise permitted to be located,” the legislation said. The handgun has to be stored in a locked container that is out of sight in the locked car.
Young said he thought the bill, which had surfaced in previous sessions, finally passed for the same reason House Bill 1249 passed. Rep. Charlie Collins, a Republican whose district includes parts of Washington County, sponsored the bill, which allows concealed-carry licensees to bring their handguns on public college campuses after they complete an eight-hour training course.
“This particular General Assembly had a very strong flavor for Second Amendment issues, and this fell squarely in that category,” Young said of Act 1071.
The employer can step in and tell the worker not to bring the gun if the employee is the subject of an active or pending disciplinary proceeding.
Still, the legislation allows employees to sue their employers if they block them from storing guns in their cars on the company’s private parking lot, Young said.
The employees could recover compensatory damages, which are awarded to cover a person’s loss or injury suffered as a result of another person’s actions, and attorney’s fees, Young said.
The bill does provide the business, however, with immunity if the handgun is used to cause an injury or death.
“There’s a lot of restrictions on the gun holder’s right to carry, but nonetheless, they do now have a right to bring it onto their employer’s parking lot,” Young said.
He said the law isn’t clear in the case of an employer using a parking deck operated by a third party. “Does that mean they get to bring it to the parking deck?” Young asked. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”
Background Checks
Rep. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, sponsored the one-paragraph legislation that became Act 1028. It requires employers that conduct background checks to share the results with the employee or applicant upon request.
“It was just an idea some friends of mine had about ways that we might be able to help employees here in Arkansas,” Leding told Arkansas Business. “It wasn’t in response to any specific incident or anecdote.”
He said he didn’t think anyone should miss out on a job opportunity because of a background check that might contain wrong information.
Young, however, said one of the problems with the bill is it doesn’t define background checks or the scope of information that would be included.
“When I think of a background check, I think of a criminal background check,” Young said. “But I think a good lawyer could find or argue for a definition on a background check that’s much broader than that.”
It also doesn’t address the question of attorney-client privilege if a lawyer conducts the background check on behalf of the employer. “This doesn’t make any allowance for that,” Young said.
The legislation also doesn’t say if a human resources officer’s notes would be considered part of the background check that would have to be handed over to the employee or unsuccessful applicant, Young said.
Leding said he was focused on inaccurate information in criminal background checks.
“If your name is John Smith and there’s another John Smith that committed a crime, and for whatever reason that ended up tied to data that was collected during a background check on you, then you should have the right to say, ‘That’s not me.’”
The legislation goes into effect on July 31.
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