A District Court judge in Nevada has denied competing motions for summary judgment from both the plaintiff and the defendant in a Fair Credit Reporting Act case related to whether the investigation conducted by the defendant was adequate or not after the plaintiff disputed the debt.
The Background: The plaintiff filed suit, accusing the defendants of not conducting a reasonable investigation after he disputed that he owed an unpaid debt to an apartment complex where he had been living.
- The plaintiff accused the defendant of violating Section 1681s-2(b) of the FCRA by conducting an inadequate investigation and by deciding not to modify or delete the information that was being furnished to the credit reporting agencies.
The Motions: Both parties filed motions for summary judgment. The plaintiff claimed that the defendant admitted it did not investigate the accuracy of its reporting after receiving the plaintiff’s formal disputes. The plaintiff argued that the defendant cannot rely on the investigation it conducted before the formal disputes when the plaintiff directly disputed the debts with the defendant.
- The defendant claims the investigation was adequate and that the “one satisfaction rule” prohibits any further recovery.
The One Satisfaction Rule: The rule, it seems to me, is similar to the concept of Double Jeopardy in criminal cases, where if you recover something for a particular injury from a defendant, you are prohibited from recovering something from someone else for the same injury.
The Final Ruling: Judge Andrew P. Gordon of the District Court for the District of Nevada determined he did not have to make a decision whether the one satisfaction rule applies because the amount of the damages, including those for emotional distress, has not been determined under a proposed settlement with the credit reporting agencies.
- Ultimately, at this stage of the litigation, there are still genuine issues of material fact that remain related to the accuracy of the reported information and the reasonableness of the defendant’s investigation, Judge Gordon ruled.
