Being labeled a “sex offender” is not a punishment?

An interesting case was filed in Massachusetts, where a man sued a background check company for incorrectly labeling him as a sex offender.

The man, who was single and used dating sites to meet woman, was one day kicked off a couple of popular dating sites. When he dug into the reason, he discovered that Backgroundchecks.com incorrectly flagged him as a registered sex offender. Two sites that used the service to screen users, Plenty of Fish and OK Cupid, banned his accounts.

As it turns out, the man is not required to register anywhere. He just has a similar name to someone on the opposite side of the country who does. But, apparently, you don’t need to be a registrant, be married to or a child of one, employ one or simply be friends with one to suffer consequences, now being misidentified as one is also grounds for punishment because the dating sites refused to restore his account.

The Plaintiff claimed that as a result of him being erroneously flagged as a “sex offender” he “was understandably distraught at the thought that his online and/or offline reputation would thus be permanently befouled. Plaintiff suffered embarrassment, anxiety, sleeplessness, emotional pain, and mental anguish. ”

Now being registered as a “sex offender” is not supposed to be a punishment, right? It’s merely supposed to be a status. The fact that it comes with a boatload of punitive consequences somehow (in the mind of lawmakers) doesn’t change its effect, right? If that is true, this person should not have a claim. However, if his lawsuit is allowed to proceed to to the point he collects punitive damages, it sure looks like even being mislabeled as a registrant has some pretty strong punitive effects.

Ultimately the lawsuit hinged on the Fair Credit Reporting Act and will have no impact on the registry, it’s just very interesting to read the facts of the case and note yet another situation where something claimed to be “not punishment” has such devastating effects on someone.