In a case that was defended by Dale Golden and the team at Martin Golden Lyons Watts Morgan, a District Court judge in Florida has granted a defendant’s motion for summary judgment in a Fair Credit Reporting Act case, determining that the plaintiff did not provide any evidence to support his claim that the defendant — a collection operation — did not conduct a reasonable investigation when the plaintiff disputed the debt.
The Background: The plaintiff disputed an item on his credit report — a delinquent debt owed to AT&T. The plaintiff claimed to be the victim of identity theft and that the tradeline should not be on his credit report. The defendant did eventually inform the credit reporting agencies that the tradeline should be removed.
- The plaintiff filed suit, alleging the credit reporting agencies and the collection operation violated the FCRA by not conducting a reasonable investigation.
The Ruling: To win the case, the defendant claimed the plaintiff had no evidence to support his claim that it did not conduct a reasonable investigation and the plaintiff failed to provide any.
- In this case, the defendant argued, AT&T sent the account to it for collections. Pursuant to the agreement between the two companies, AT&T is only supposed to refer accounts that are overdue, which is true in this case. After the plaintiff disputed the debt, AT&T confirmed to the plaintiff that it had sent his a ccount to the defendant for collection.
- The defendant reasonably relied on AT&T to tell it whether the plaintiff’s account was overdue and the plaintiff never took any evidence from the defendant — such as deposing an employee — to prove its investigation was unreasonable, noted Judge Robin L. Rosenberg of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida. All the plaintiff had is his argument that if a reasonable investigation had been conducted, the identity theft would have been discovered.
- “Instead, the Plaintiff relies upon the mere existence of internal records of the Defendant that show a discrepancy with the spelling of the Plaintiff’s name and the address where the Plaintiff resided,” Judge Rosenberg wrote. “It is undisputed, however, that AT&T — not the Defendant — knew whether the Plaintiff’s account was overdue, and the Plaintiff has provided no evidence in his Response on what the Defendant’s investigation was, how the investigation was unreasonable, and what reasonable steps would have resulted in the Defendant effectively overruling AT&T’s determination (even though AT&T was the sole authority) that the Plaintiff’s account was overdue.”
