A District Court judge in Michigan has granted a defendant’s motion for summary judgment in a Fair Credit Reporting Act case while also denying the defendant’s motion for sanctions, but noting that he was “troubled” by the plaintiff’s counsel’s conduct in the case and “expressly” warning that “continuing to file and pursue similar baseless claims going forward will likely result in sanctions.”
A copy of the ruling in the case of Lawson v. Michigan First Credit Union can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff defaulted on an auto loan, and the vehicle was repossessed. Along with the balance on the loan, the lender was also forced to place insurance on the vehicle, and charge the plaintiff for that policy. Ultimately, it led to three tradelines being reported on the plaintiff’s credit report. The plaintiff disputed the debts, arguing that the tradelines should show $0 balances because the loan had been charged off and the insurance policies had been closed. The plaintiff filed suit, alleging the defendant violated Section 1681s-2(b) of the FCRA by not properly investigating the dispute that was filed.
The defendant filed a motion to dismiss, which was denied because because none of the pleadings included a copy of the credit report.
Once discovery closed, the defendant filed its motion for summary judgment, as well as a motion for sanctions, claiming that the plaintiff’s counsel had no reasonable basis for pursuing the claims because they “were well aware” that Courts in that District that have reviewed credit reports have “uniformly rejected the exact claims” made by the plaintiff in this case.
In filing the motion for summary judgment, the defendant claimed the plaintiff lacked standing to pursue her claim because she had not alleged to have suffered a concrete injury and thus lacked standing to sue. Agreeing that the plaintiff’s claim to have suffered anxiety and stress were insufficient to confer standing, Judge Paul Borman of the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, also looked at the arguments made by the plaintiff, exclusive of whether she had standing to sue or not. In looking at other cases, some of them involving the same defendant, Judge Borman found that there was enough additional information in the tradeline, that, when read as a whole, were “not in any sense inaccurate or misleading, and no reader of the report could have been confused about the status of the accounts.”
Turning to the issue of sanctions, while expressing is concerns and warning plaintiff’s counsel about pursuing similar claims in the future, the fact that the case survived a motion to dismiss, that the plaintiff’s counsel was likely working on contingency and thus received no compensation for pursuing the lawsuit, and because the adverse decisions in other cases were rendered after this complaint was filed, that sanctions were not warranted. “… while the Court declines to impose the monetary sanctions Defendant seeks at this time, the Court is troubled by Plaintiff’s counsel’s conduct in this case, and others it has filed in this District, and expressly warns Plaintiff’s counsel that continuing to file and pursue similar baseless claims going forward will likely result in sanctions,” Judge Borman wrote.
