Tag: Fair Credit Reporting Act

Eleventh Circuit Affirms Dismissal of FCRA Claims Since Alleged Inaccurate Information Was Not Objectively and Readily Verifiable

In Holden v. Holiday Inn Club Vacations Inc., No. 22-11014, No. 22-11734, 2024 WL 1759143 (11th Cir. 2024), which was a consolidated appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (“Eleventh Circuit” or “Court”) held that the purchasers of a timeshare did not have actionable FCRA claims since the alleged inaccurate information reported to one of the consumer reporting agencies (“CRAs”) was not objectively and readily verifiable. In doing so, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed two decisions issued by United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida (“District Court”) granting of summary judgment in favor of the timeshare company in the respective cases.

Summary of Facts and Background

Two consumers, Mark Mayer (“Mayer”) and Tanethia Holden (“Holden”), entered into two separate purchase agreements with Holiday Inn Club Vacations Incorporated (“Holiday”) to acquire timeshare interests in Cape Canaveral and Las Vegas, respectively. Holiday is a timeshare company that allows customers to purchase one or more of its vacation properties in weekly increments that can be used annually during the designated period. As part of the transaction, Holiday’s customers typically elect to finance their timeshare purchases through Holiday, which results in the execution of a promissory note and mortgage.

  1. Mayer’s Purchase, Default, and Dispute

On September 15, 2014, Mayer entered into his purchase agreement with Holiday, which contained a title and closing provision stating the transaction would not close until Mayer made the first three monthly payments, and Holiday recorded a deed in Mayer’s name. The purchase agreement also included a purchaser’s default provision stating that upon Mayer’s default or breach of any of the terms or conditions of the agreement, all sums paid by Mayer would be retained by Holiday as liquidated damages and the parties to the purchase agreement would be relieved from all obligations thereunder. Further, the purchase agreement provided that any payments made under a related promissory note prior to the closing would be subject to the purchaser’s default provision. On the same day, Mayer executed a promissory note to finance his timeshare purchase, which was for a term of 120 months. On July 13, 2015, Holiday recorded a deed in Mayer’s name, and he proceeded to tender timely monthly payments until May 2017. As a result of Mayer’s failure to tender subsequent payments, Holiday reported Mayer’s delinquency to the CRA.

Approximately two years later, Mayer obtained a copy of his credit report and discovered Holiday had reported a past-due balance. Thereafter, Mayer sent multiple letters to the CRA disputing the debt, as he believed the purchase agreement was terminated under the purchaser’s default provision. Each dispute was communicated to Holiday, who in turn certified that the information was accurately reported. Mayer sued Holiday for an alleged violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b) of the FCRA based on the furnishing of inaccurate information and failure to “fully and properly re-investigate” the disputes. Holiday eventually moved for partial summary judgment, which the District Court granted. The District Court reasoned that the underlying issue of whether the default provision excused Mayer’s obligation to keep paying was a legal dispute rather than a factual inaccuracy and, in turn, made Mayer’s claim not actionable under the FCRA. Mayer timely appealed to the Eleventh Circuit.

  1. Holden’s Purchase, Default, and Dispute

On June 25, 2016, Holden entered into her purchase agreement with Holiday, which contained a nearly identical title and closing provision to that of Mayer’s purchase agreement. Additionally, Holden’s purchase agreement incorporated a similar purchaser’s default provision. Similarly, Holden executed a promissory note to finance her timeshare purchase, which was for a term of 120 months, and entered into a mortgage to secure the payments under the note. After making her third payment, Holden defaulted and hired an attorney to cancel the purchase agreement pursuant to the closing and title provision and purchaser’s default provision. However, Holiday disputed the purchase agreement was canceled and, on June 19, 2017, recorded a timeshare deed in Holden’s name. More importantly, Holiday reported Holden’s delinquent debt to the CRA.

In response, Holden’s attorney sent three dispute letters to Holiday, which resulted in Holiday investigating the dispute and determining the reporting was accurate since Holden was still obligated under the note. Eventually, Holden sued Holiday for various violations of Florida State law and the FCRA. Holden claimed Holiday reported inaccurate information to the CRA, failed to conduct an appropriate investigation, and failed to correct the inaccuracies. The parties filed competing motions for partial summary judgment, which ended with the District Court granting Holiday’s motion and denying Holden’s motion. Specifically, the District Court held that Holden’s FCRA claim failed because contract disputes regarding whether Holden still owed the underlying debt are legal disputes and not factual inaccuracies. Holden timely appealed to the Eleventh Circuit.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act

As the Eleventh Circuit reiterated in Holden, when a furnisher is notified of a consumer’s dispute, the furnisher must undertake the following three actions: (1) conduct an investigation surrounding the disputed information; (2) review all relevant information provided by the CRA; and (3) report the results of the investigation to the CRA. When a furnisher determines an item of information disputed by a consumer is incomplete, inaccurate, or cannot be verified, the furnisher is required to modify, delete, or permanently block reporting of the disputed information. See 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b)(1)(E). Additionally, any disputed information that a furnisher determines is inaccurate or incomplete must be reported to all other CRAs. See 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b)(1)(D). Despite the foregoing, consumers have no private right of action against furnishers merely for reporting inaccurate information to the CRAs. The only private right of action a consumer may assert against a furnisher is for a violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b) for failure to conduct a reasonable investigation upon receiving notice of a dispute from a CRA. See 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(c)(1)).

To successfully prove an FCRA claim, the consumer must demonstrate the following: (1) the consumer identified inaccurate or incomplete information that the furnisher provided to the CRA; and (2) the ensuing investigation was unreasonable based on some facts the furnisher could have uncovered that establish the reported information was inaccurate or incomplete.

The Eleventh Circuit’s Decision

In affirming the District Court’s decisions granting summary judgment and dismissing the FCRA claims, the Eleventh Circuit clarified that whether the alleged inaccuracy was factual or legal was “beside the point. Instead, what matters is whether the alleged inaccuracy was objectively and readily verifiable.” Specifically, the Eleventh Circuit cited to Erickson v. First Advantage Background Servs. Corp., 981 F. 3d 1246, 1251-52 (11th Cir. 2020), which defined “accuracy” as “freedom from mistake or error.” The Eleventh Circuit continued by reiterating that “when evaluating whether a report is accurate under the [FCRA], we look to the objectively reasonable interpretations of the report.” As such, “a report must be factually incorrect, objectively likely to mislead its intended user, or both to violate the maximal accuracy standards of the [FCRA].”

Based on this standard, the Eleventh Circuit held that the alleged inaccurate information on which Mayer and Holden based their FCRA claims was not objectively and readily verifiable since the information stemmed from contractual disputes without simple answers. As such, the Eleventh Circuit found that Holiday took appropriate action upon receiving Mayer and Holden’s disputes by assessing the issues and determining whether the respective debts were due and/or collectible, which thereby satisfied its obligation under the FCRA. While Mayer and Holden argued to the contrary, the Eleventh Circuit held that the resolutions of these contract disputes were not straightforward applications of the law to facts. In support of its decision, the Eleventh Circuit cited to the fact that Florida State courts have reviewed similar timeshare purchase agreements and reached conflicting conclusions about whether the default provisions excused a consumer’s obligation to pay the underlying debt.

Conclusion

Holden is a limited victory for furnishers, as the Eleventh Circuit declined to impose a bright-line rule that only purely factual or transcription errors are actionable under the FCRA and held a court must determine whether the alleged inaccurate information is “objectively and readily verifiable.” Accordingly, there are situations when furnishers are required by the FCRA to accurately report information derived from the readily verifiable and straightforward application of the law to facts. One example of such a situation is misreporting the clear effect of a bankruptcy discharge order on certain types of debt. Thus, furnishers should revisit their investigation and verification procedures so they do not run afoul of the FCRA. Furnishers should also continue to monitor for developing case law as other circuit courts confront these issues.

© 2024 Blank Rome LLP
For more news on Fair Credit Reporting Act Litigation, visit the NLR Litigation / Trial Practice section.

TransUnion to Seek Supreme Court Review After Ninth Circuit Finds Class Members Had Standing and Partially Upholds Punitive Damages Award

A hotly contested ruling in a Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) class action case will soon be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.  The Ninth Circuit in Ramirez v. TransUnion LLC, Case No. 17-17244, recently granted the parties’ Joint Motion to Stay the Mandate, seeking to stay the Ninth Circuit’s mandate pending TransUnion’s filing of a petition for writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court.  The Motion to Stay comes soon after the court denied TransUnion’s Petition for Rehearing or Rehearing En Banc regarding the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Ramirez v. TransUnion LLC, 951 F.3d 1008 (9th Cir. 2020).

In Ramirez, the Ninth Circuit held for the first time that every class member in a class action lawsuit needs “standing” to recover damages at the final judgment stage.  The 8,185 member class alleged that TransUnion, knowing that its practice was unlawful, violated the FCRA by incorrectly placing terrorist alerts on the front page of consumers’ credit reports and later sending the consumers misleading and incomplete disclosures about the alerts and how to remove them.  The court held that each class member was required to, and did, have standing, even though the credit reports of over 75% of the class were not actually disclosed to a third party because TransUnion’s alleged violation of the consumers’ statutory rights under the FCRA, by itself, constituted a concrete injury.  The Ninth Circuit also found that the jury’s punitive damages award of 6.45 times the statutory damages award was unconstitutional, and reduced it to 4 times the statutory damages award.  The Ramirez decision is discussed in more detail here.

In its Petition for Rehearing, TransUnion claimed that the dissent had the correct view, and the majority’s decision “not only conflicts with Supreme Court teachings, but puts the Ninth Circuit on the wrong side of a lopsided circuit split.”  TransUnion argued that the class of consumers did not have standing for their FCRA claims unless their credit reports were disclosed to a third party.  TransUnion further alleged that the class should have been decertified because Ramirez, the named plaintiff, “was radically atypical of the class he purported to represent” since there was no evidence that any other class member’s credit report was disseminated.  Finally, TransUnion disputed the court’s punitive damages award because a reduction to 4 times the statutory damages award was not enough.  According to TransUnion, the Supreme Court requires, at a maximum, a punitive damages award “equal to compensatory damages . . . when compensatory damages are substantial.”

TransUnion concluded its Petition for Rehearing by stating:

It is no exaggeration to say that, for many class members, the first indication that they were injured at all will be when they receive a $4,925.10 check in the mail. That absurd result is the product of ignoring basic requirements of Article III, Rule 23, and due process.

As of the date this article is published, TransUnion has not yet filed its petition for writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court, but we will continue to monitor the case for updates.

Copyright © 2020, Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP. All Rights Reserved.

For more on the Fair Credit Reporting Act, see the National Law Review Financial Institutions & Banking law page.

House Financial Services Committee Passes Credit Reporting Bills

Four bills dealing with credit reporting were passed last Thursday by the House Financial Services Committee.  While there has been bipartisan support for credit reporting reform, none of the bills received any Republican votes.

The bills, which are listed below, would make various amendments to the FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act), including those described below:

  • The “Improving Credit Reporting for All Consumers Act” would impose new requirements for conducting reinvestigations of consumer disputes and related standards, require consumer reporting agencies to create a webpage providing information about consumer dispute rights, require furnishers to retain records necessary to substantiate the accuracy and completeness of furnished information, create a right for consumers to appeal the results of a reinvestigation, prohibit automatic renewals of consumer reporting and credit scoring products and services, and require a credit scoring model to treat multiple inquiries for a credit report or credit score made in connection with certain consumer credit products within a 120-period as a single inquiry.
  • The “Restoring Unfairly Impaired Credit and Protecting Consumers Act” would shorten the time period during which adverse information can stay on a consumer report, require the expedited removal of fully paid or settled debts from consumer reports, impose restrictions on the reporting of information about medical debts, require a consumer reporting agency to remove adverse information relating to a private student loan where the CFPB has certified that the borrower has a valid “defraudment claim” with respect to the educational institution or career education program, allow victims of financial abuse to obtain a court order requiring the removal of adverse information, and prohibit a credit scoring model from taking into account in an adverse manner the consumer’s participation in certain credit restoration or rehabilitation programs or the absence of payment history for an existing account resulting from such participation.
  • The “Free Credit Scores for Consumers Act of 2019” would expand the information that must be given to consumers about credit scores, require nationwide consumer reporting agencies to provide a free credit score when providing a free annual consumer report requested by the consumer, and require free consumer reports and credit scores to be provided under certain circumstances.
  • The “Restricting Use of Credit Checks for Employment Decisions Act” would prohibit the use of consumer reports for most employment decisions other than where the person using the report is required by federal, state, or local law to obtain the report or the report is used in connection with a national security investigation.

The House Financial Services Committee is scheduled to mark up more bills dealing with credit reporting today.

 

Copyright © by Ballard Spahr LLP
For more financial legislation, please see the Financial Institutions & Banking page of the National Law Review.

LinkedIn, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the Real-World Implications of Online Activity

With the ever-increasing amount of information available on social media, employers should remember to exercise caution when utilizing social media as a part of their Human Resources/ Recruitment related activities. We live in a digital-age, and how people choose to define themselves is often readily showcased on social networking sites. Whether – and how – employers choose to interact with the online presence of their workforce will continue to develop as the relevant legal standards try to catch up.

A recent federal court filing in the Northern District of California against LinkedIn Corp. provides yet another example of the growing interaction between online personas and real-world employment law implications. There, in Sweet, et al v. LinkedIn Corp., the plaintiffs sought to expand the application of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) by alleging that LinkedIn’s practice of providing “reference reports” to members that subscribe to LinkedIn’s program for a fee, brought LinkedIn within the coverage of the FCRA as a Credit Reporting Agency (“CRA”). Briefly, the FCRA (and relevant state statutes like it) imposes specific requirements on an employer when working with “any person which, for monetary fees, dues, or on a cooperative nonprofit basis, regularly engages in whole or in part in the practice of assembling or evaluating consumer credit information or other information on consumers for the purpose of furnishing consumer reports to third parties, and which uses any means or facility of interstate commerce for the purpose of preparing or furnishing consumer reports.” In other words, there are rules – such as providing requisite disclosures and obtaining prior authorization – that apply when an employer engages a CRA to perform background checks, reference checks and related inquiries.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that LinkedIn was a CRA – and that these various rules should apply – because LinkedIn collected and distributed consumer information to third parties and the resulting reference reports “bear on a consumer’s character, general reputation, mode of living, or personal characteristics, and/or other factors listed in 15 U.S.C. § 1681a(d).” Further, according to the complaint, LinkedIn violated the FCRA because it should have provided FCRA compliant disclosure and followed the reporting obligations applicable to CRAs.

LinkedIn, which is touted as the “world’s largest professional network,” does not portray itself as a CRA and moved to dismiss the complaint. LinkedIn argued that the plaintiffs’ interpretation of the statute was too broad and, moreover, was inconsistent with the facts. A federal judge agreed and dismissed the complaint (although the plaintiffs have the opportunity to file another complaint). The Court ruled that these reference searches could not be considered “consumer reports” under the law – and LinkedIn was not acting as a CRA – because, in part, the plaintiffs had voluntarily provided their information to LinkedIn with the intention of it being published online. (The FCRA excludes from the definition of a consumer report a report that contains “information solely as to transactions or experiences between the consumer and the person making the report.”) The Court also noted that the allegations suggested that LinkedIn “gathers the information about the employment histories of the subjects of the Reference Searches not to make consumer reports but to ‘carry out consumers’ information-sharing objectives.’”

The LinkedIn case should still serve as a reminder of several important and interrelated trends. First, as it concerns the FCRA, the statute is broadly worded to cover “any written, oral or other communication of any information by a consumer reporting agency . . .” and the equally expansive definition of a CRA can apply in numerous situations that extend beyond the traditional notion of a consumer reporting agency. If applicable, the requirements of the FCRA must be followed. Second, employers need to continue to be mindful of the fact that their online activity can have real-world employment law implications. Third, as the law governing traditional employment law continues to evolve in response to online developments, the challenges to that activity will evolve as well.

Authored by: Ian Gabriel Nanos and Maxine Adams of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C.

©2015 Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. All rights reserved.

Supreme Court to Decide Who Can Sue Under Privacy Law

Does a consumer, as an individual, have standing to sue a consumer reporting agency for a “knowing violation” of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), even if the individual may not have suffered any “actual damages”?

The question will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 742 F.3d 409 (9th Cir. 2014), cert. granted, 2015 U.S. LEXIS 2947 (U.S. Apr. 27, 2015) (No. 13-1339). The Court’s decision will have far-reaching implications for suits under the FCRA and other statutes that regulate privacy and consumer credit information.

FCRA

Enacted in 1970, the Fair Credit Reporting Act obligates consumer reporting agencies to maintain procedures to assure the “maximum possible accuracy” of any consumer report it creates. Under the statute, consumer reporting agencies are persons who regularly engage “in the practice of assembling or evaluating consumer credit information or other information on consumers for the purpose of furnishing consumer reports to third parties.” Information about a consumer is considered to be a consumer report when a consumer reporting agency has communicated that information to another party and “is used or expected to be used or collected” for certain purposes, such as extending credit, underwriting insurance, or considering an applicant for employment. The information in a consumer report must relate to a “consumer’s credit worthiness, credit standing, credit capacity, character, general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living.”

Under the FCRA, consumers may bring a private cause of action for alleged violations of their FCRA rights resulting from a consumer reporting agency’s negligent or willful actions. For a negligent violation, the consumer may recover the actual damages he or she may have sustained. For a “willful” or “knowing” violation, a consumer may recover either actual damages or statutory monetary damages of $100 to $1,000.

Background

Spokeo is a website that aggregates personal data from public records that it sells for many purposes, including employment screening. The information provided on the site may include an individual’s contact information, age, address, income, credit status, ethnicity, religion, photographs, and social media use.

Spokeo, Inc., has the dubious distinction of receiving the first fine ($800,000) from the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) for FCRA violations involving the sale of Internet and social media data in the employment screening context. The FTC alleged that the company was a consumer reporting agency and that it failed to comply with the FCRA’s requirements when it marketed consumer information to companies in the human resources, background screening, and recruiting industries.

Conflict in Circuit Courts

In Robins v. Spokeo, Inc., Thomas Robins had alleged several FCRA violations, including the reckless production of false information to potential employers. Robins did not allege he had suffered or was about to suffer any actual or imminent harm resulting from the information that was produced, raising only the possibility of a future injury.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, held that allegations of willful FCRA violations are sufficient to confer Article III standing to sue upon a plaintiff who suffers no concrete harm, and who therefore could not otherwise invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court, by authorizing a private right of action based on a bare violation of the statute. In other words, the consumer need not allege any resulting damage caused by a violation; the “knowing violation” of a consumer’s FCRA rights alone, the Ninth Circuit held, injures the consumer. The Ninth Circuit’s holding is consistent with other circuits that have addressed the issue. See e.g., Beaudry v. TeleCheck Servs., Inc., 579 F.3d 702, 705-07 (6th Cir. 2009). It refused to follow the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in finding that one “reasonable reading of the [FCRA] could still require proof of actual damages but simply substitute statutory rather than actual damages for the purpose of calculating the damage award.” Dowell v. Wells Fargo Bank, NA, 517 F.3d 1024, 1026 (8th Cir. 2008).

The constitutional question before the U.S. Supreme Court is the scope of Congress’ authority to confer Article III standing, particularly, whether a violation of consumers’ statutory rights under the FCRA are the type of injury for which Congress may create a private cause of action to redress. In Beaudry, the Sixth Circuit identified two limitations on Congress’ ability to confer standing:

  1. the plaintiff must be “among the injured,” and

  2. the statutory right must protect against harm to an individual rather than a collective.

The defendant companies in Beaudry provided check-verification services. They had failed to account for a change in the numbering system for Tennessee driver’s licenses. This led to reports incorrectly identifying consumers as first-time check-writers.

The Sixth Circuit did not require the plaintiffs in Beaudry to allege the consequential damages resulting from the incorrect information. Instead, it held that the FCRA “does not require a consumer to wait for consequential harm” (such as the denial of credit) before bringing suit under FCRA for failure to implement reasonable procedures in the preparation of consumer reports. The Ninth Circuit endorsed this position, holding that the other standing requirements of causation and redressability are satisfied “[w]hen the injury in fact is the violation of a statutory right that [is] inferred from the existence of a private cause of action.”

Authored by: Jason C. Gavejian and Tyler Philippi of Jackson Lewis P.C.

Jackson Lewis P.C. © 2015

California Class Action Suit Alleges LinkedIn Violated Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) By Providing Employers With Reference Reports

Allen Matkins Law Firm

Another interesting case filed in California recently highlights the myriad risks employers face when using social media as part of their hiring process.

A class action lawsuit was filed in the Central District of California against LinkedIn based on allegations that thereference reports LinkedIn generates for premium subscribers, including many employers, violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act(“FCRA”). According to the plaintiffs in Sweet, et. al. v. LinkedIn Corporation, an employer who is a premium subscriber can generate a report containing the names, locations, employment areas, current employers, and current positions of all persons in a user’s network who may have worked with a job applicant and also contact the applicant’s “references.” An employer, according to the allegations, can run such a “reference report” on a job applicant without the applicant receiving any notification whatsoever. Thus, as the complaint alleges, “any potential employer can anonymously dig into the employment history of any LinkedIn member, and make hiring and firing decisions based upon the information they gather, without the knowledge of the member, and without any safeguards in place as to the accuracy of the information that the potential employer has obtained.” The complaint claims this activity potentially violates both the FCRA’s purposes, which include safeguards as to the accuracy, fairness, and privacy of the information that a potential employer obtains, and the FCRA’s customer notification requirements.

This latest lawsuit against LinkedIn serves as another example of the complex legal issues and risks that an employer faces when using social media to make recruiting and hiring decisions.

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