Massachusetts law, General Laws Chapter 149, Section 19B, makes it unlawful for an employer to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment.

In addition, the statute requires that all job applications “for employment within the Commonwealth” contain the following notice: “It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.”

An employer that violates this law may be subject to fines and/or a private right of action for $500 in statutory damages for each violation.

Although the law is decades old, several questions remain:

• The statute’s wording leaves ambiguity regarding the scope of the private right of action. Does it apply only to individuals who are subjected to a lie detector test, or does it extend to anyone who completes an application without the required notice? In a 2016 case, Judge Mitchell H. Kaplan of the Massachusetts Superior Court held that the statute’s private right of action did not apply to individuals who merely completed an application lacking the notice but were not subjected to a lie detector test (Auguste v. G4S Secure Solutions (USA) Inc.). Another court more recently reached the opposite conclusion, although it is unclear whether that court considered the arguments raised in Auguste.
• The extent of the statute’s reach is...

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