The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently affirmed judgments entered in separate cases consolidated on appeal in favor of several credit reporting agencies rejecting consumers’ claims of violations of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
Posts published in “FCRA”
Fair Credit Reporting Act
On June 25, 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States held that a plaintiff must suffer a concrete injury resulting from a defendant’s statutory violation to have Article III standing to pursue damages from that defendant in federal court. The Court also held that plaintiffs in a class action must prove that every class member has standing for each claim asserted and for each form of relief sought.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently affirmed a trial court’s judgment in favor of a consumer reporting agency (CRA).
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently announced a consent order against a subprime automobile finance company for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act resulting from systemic errors in data furnished to credit reporting agencies between January 2016 and August 2019.
During what was an extraordinary and difficult year, there was an abundance of activity at the state and federal levels and a good deal of it was driven by the present COVID-19 pandemic. Here is my take on some of the most significant regulatory activities from the past year in consumer debt collection that will continue to impact both consumers and creditors in the years to come.
The U.S. Court of Appels for the Eleventh Circuit recently held that a consumer report that was factually accurate with clear instructions on how to further confirm the report's accuracy, was not misleading and complied with the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act’s “maximum possible accuracy” standard.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed entry of summary judgment in favor of a mortgage servicer against claims brought by plaintiff homeowners that obtaining their credit reports after their mortgage loans had been discharged in bankruptcy willfully violated the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed a trial court’s order compelling arbitration, holding that a single website visit by a consumer long after she entered into a contract with a credit reporting agency (CRA) that contained a change-of-terms provision did not bind the parties to changed terms in the updated contract, including exempting some claims from binding arbitration, because the consumer did not allege that she was aware of the changed terms as required to assent to the new terms.
In a case of first impression for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the Court joined the Sixth Circuit in holding that obtaining a consumer report to verify a consumer’s identity and eligibility for a service is a “legitimate business need” and therefore a “permissible purpose” under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
The FTC will soon propose changes it says are designed to align several existing rules under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act with the Dodd-Frank Act. The impacted rules cover only “motor vehicle dealers” being persons “predominantly engaged in the sale and servicing of motor vehicles, the leasing and servicing of motor vehicles, or both.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently held that two plaintiff consumers failed to state a claim under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) because the plaintiffs did not allege that they reported the alleged errors to a consumer credit reporting agency or that any such agency notified them of the alleged errors; and there is no private right of action arising from a direct dispute of credit reporting with only the furnisher.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently held that it is generally not legal error for a trial court to hold that a settlement class satisfies class action predominance requirements, particularly for a class asserting a unifying federal claim, without first performing a choice-of-law analysis.