CHRIA § 9125 Applies When an Employer Receives Self-Disclosed Conviction Information

1. Introduction

In Rodney Phath v. Central Transport LLC (3d Cir. Jan. 28, 2026), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit addressed whether Pennsylvania’s Criminal History Record Information Act (“CHRIA”), 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 9101–9183, regulates an employer’s use of an applicant’s criminal conviction when the employer learns of that conviction directly from the applicant rather than from a state repository or agency file.

Rodney Phath applied for a truck-driving job with Central Transport LLC. During the hiring process, Central Transport indicated it would check Phath’s criminal record. Before any check occurred, Phath disclosed a fifteen-year-old armed robbery conviction (six years’ imprisonment). Central Transport allegedly rejected him immediately because of that conviction. Phath sued under CHRIA, alleging violations of § 9125(b) (use only to the extent convictions relate to suitability for the job) and § 9125(c) (written notice requirement upon rejection based on criminal history record information).

The district court dismissed, concluding CHRIA did not apply because Central Transport learned the conviction from Phath rather than from the state. The Third Circuit reversed and remanded.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Third Circuit held that CHRIA § 9125 can apply even when an employer learns criminal-history facts from the applicant’s own disclosure. The controlling inquiry under § 9125(a) is the type of information received—information that is part of an applicant’s “criminal history record information file”—not the source from which the employer obtained it. Because felony convictions are part of that file, Central Transport’s receipt of Phath’s self-disclosed conviction triggered § 9125’s constraints.

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited

  • McCafferty v. Newsweek Media Grp., 955 F.3d 352 (3d Cir. 2020)
    The court cited McCafferty for the standard of review on appeal from a motion-to-dismiss: review is de novo and the court accepts the complaint’s factual allegations as true. This mattered because the appeal turned on statutory interpretation, not factfinding, and because the court assessed the sufficiency of Phath’s pleaded theory that CHRIA governed Central Transport’s conduct even without a state-sourced background check.
  • Thompson v. Thompson, 223 A.3d 1272 (Pa. 2020)
    Thompson supplied Pennsylvania’s articulation of the expressio unius canon: when a statute lists specific exceptions, it implies the exclusion of others. The Third Circuit used this principle to reject Central Transport’s attempt to derive an unlisted exemption for applicant self-disclosure from CHRIA § 9104(a)’s enumerated exclusions (e.g., court documents, wanted posters, police blotters, press releases).

3.2. Legal Reasoning

The court’s reasoning proceeded as a close reading of CHRIA’s text and structure, focusing on § 9125(a) and related definitional and contextual provisions:

A. The operative text: “in receipt of information … part of … [the] file”

Section 9125(a) applies “[w]henever an employer is in receipt of information which is part of an employment applicant’s criminal history record information file….” The court emphasized two points:

  1. “In receipt of” is source-agnostic. The phrase requires only that the employer has received the information; it does not specify that the information must be received from a repository or criminal justice agency.
  2. The limiting concept is the nature of the information. The statutory trigger is that the information received is “part of” the applicant’s “criminal history record information file.”

B. Interpreting “which” and avoiding surplusage

Central to the opinion is the court’s treatment of the clause “information which is part of….” The court considered (and rejected) a reading under which “which” would not restrict the term “information,” because that would make the remainder of the clause pointless (a surplusage problem). Drawing on interpretive guidance noted in Chicago Manual of Style and on the pragmatic interpretive approach described in Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, the court concluded that “which” functions as a restrictive clause (especially given the lack of a comma), so § 9125(a) is triggered only when the information received is of the defined kind.

C. What is the “criminal history record information file”?

Although CHRIA does not define “criminal history record information file,” the court inferred its meaning from CHRIA’s context: the phrase appears again in § 9121(f), which discusses repositories entering dissemination lists as a permanent part of an individual’s criminal history record information file. That context, along with other provisions addressing repositories and criminal justice agencies (§§ 9102, 9111), supports understanding the “file” as the compilation of criminal history facts collected and maintained by state agencies.

Importantly, the court treated felony convictions like Phath’s as plainly included within that file (citing §§ 9102, 9111, 9113). Therefore, the conviction information is “part of” the file—even if the employer learns the fact from the applicant rather than by requesting the file.

D. Rejecting a “source” requirement not present in § 9125(a)

The court criticized Central Transport’s proposed reading as effectively rewriting § 9125(a) to focus on receipt of information “from” the file itself. The court refused to add words the legislature did not enact, holding that § 9125(a) hinges on the category of information, not how it was obtained. On that view, once Central Transport received a fact that is part of Phath’s criminal history record information file, CHRIA’s substantive constraints—including § 9125(b)’s suitability limitation and § 9125(c)’s written notice requirement—could apply.

E. Ban-the-box laws are not displaced

Central Transport argued the court’s reading would make ban-the-box laws pointless. The court rejected that, distinguishing between: (i) laws that prohibit asking about convictions at certain stages (ban-the-box), and (ii) CHRIA, which does not forbid asking but regulates use of conviction information once received.

F. Section 9104(a) does not create an implied self-disclosure exemption

Central Transport invoked § 9104(a), which excludes certain sources (e.g., court documents, police blotters, press releases) from CHRIA’s restrictions in specified ways. The court held that even if § 9104(a) bears on § 9125(a) in hiring cases, it does not help Central Transport because Phath’s disclosure does not fit any listed exemption. Applying expressio unius (as framed in Thompson v. Thompson), the court declined to create an additional, unlisted exemption for information originating in the applicant’s own statements.

3.3. Impact

  • Broader CHRIA coverage in hiring. Employers in Pennsylvania (and litigants in diversity cases applying Pennsylvania law) should expect CHRIA § 9125 obligations to attach when they receive conviction information during interviews or applications, even before any third-party or repository check.
  • Compliance focus shifts to use, not acquisition channel. Employers cannot avoid § 9125(b) and (c) simply by eliciting convictions directly from applicants or receiving them informally; they must be prepared to justify job-relatedness/suitability and to provide written notice when rejecting based on such information.
  • Litigation consequences at the pleading stage. Because the decision reinstated the complaint after dismissal, it signals that plaintiffs can survive motions to dismiss by alleging that the employer received conviction information that is part of the CHRIA “file” and then failed to comply with § 9125’s substantive and procedural safeguards.
  • Interaction with local ordinances. The opinion preserves room for municipalities to enforce stricter “ban-the-box” regimes regulating questions themselves, while CHRIA continues to regulate downstream use and notice obligations.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • De novo review: The appellate court gives no deference to the district court’s legal conclusions and decides the issue fresh.
  • Motion-to-dismiss posture: The court assumes the complaint’s factual allegations are true and asks only whether the law could provide relief on those facts.
  • Restrictive vs. nonrestrictive clauses (“which”): A clause without a comma often limits the meaning of what comes before it. Here, “information which is part of…” narrows the covered “information.”
  • Surplusage canon: Courts prefer interpretations that give effect to every statutory phrase; readings that render words meaningless are disfavored.
  • Expressio unius: When lawmakers list specific exceptions, courts generally infer that unlisted exceptions were intentionally excluded.
  • “Type of information” vs. “source of information”: The decision distinguishes between what the information is (a conviction fact that belongs in the CHRIA file) and where the employer learned it (from the applicant or from a repository).

5. Conclusion

The Third Circuit’s decision establishes a clear rule for CHRIA hiring-discrimination claims: § 9125 is triggered when an employer receives conviction information that is part of an applicant’s criminal history record information file, regardless of whether the employer learned it from the applicant or from state-held records. By rejecting an implied “self-disclosure” exemption and reinforcing text-focused interpretation (including avoidance of surplusage and use of expressio unius), the opinion expands the practical reach of CHRIA’s suitability and notice safeguards and meaningfully shapes employer compliance strategies in Pennsylvania.