A District Court judge in New Jersey has granted a defendant’s motion for summary judgment in a Fair Credit Reporting Act and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act class-action case, ruling the plaintiff lacked standing to sue after having a settled debt reported to the credit bureaus as “owed in full, less the amount received for the settlement.”
A copy of the ruling in the case of Sanders v. CACH et al can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff was sued by the defendant for an unpaid debt of $15,372. The two sides settled out of court for $1,000 and the plaintiff received a letter indicating that the account had been “settled in full.”
A month later, having checked her credit report, the plaintiff noticed that the debt was being reported as “owed in full, less the amount received for the settlement.” A year after that, she filed suit, alleging the defendants were violating the FCRA and the FDCPA. A District Court judge granted a motion to dismiss from the defendants on all the counts except a 1692e claim related to the alleged inaccurate credit reporting of a settlement balance and a 1681s-2(b) claim for allegedly failing to properly investigate a dispute and correct an overstated balance. Both sides then filed motions for summary judgment.
Ultimately, the reasons why the plaintiff claimed to have standing —
- She had to retain an attorney to deal with the issue
- She suffered defamation damages when Credit Karma was misled to believe that Plaintiff had an outstanding balance with CACH
- The reporting created questions of whether the debt was resolved
- Defendants have foreclosed Plaintiff from submitting the same dispute in the future
None of these reasons are enough for the plaintiff to have standing to sue, ruled Judge Julien Xavier Neals of the District Court for the District of New Jersey. “… Plaintiff has not submitted any evidence that she was ever denied credit or suffered any other detriment as a result of the alleged inaccurate reporting,” Judge Neals wrote. “Thus, whereas here, there is no evidence to support the contention that the claimed inaccurate information was disseminated to third-parties, there is no concrete harm.”
