A District Court judge in Missouri has granted a defendant’s motion for summary judgment in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case, ruling the plaintiff lacked standing to sue after unsuccessfully attempting to have a dispute notation removed from her credit report.
The Background: The plaintiff defaulted on a credit card debt in 2019 that was purchased by the defendant. In April 2020, the plaintiff disputed the account and the defendant reported the debt to the credit bureaus with an “XB” condition code. In September 2021, the defendant received a letter from an attorney claiming to represent the plaintiff who said the debt was no longer being disputed. The attorney did not copy the plaintiff on the letter and there was no power of attorney from the plaintiff to the lawyer included with the letter. The defendant continued to report the debt as disputed.
- The plaintiff filed suit, claiming the failure to remove the notation had a negative effect on her credit score and hindered her from getting credit.
The Ruling: That she claimed to have been hindered from getting credit “flagrantly misstates” the plaintiff’s testimony, noted Judge Matthew T. Schelp of the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. In her testimony, the plaintiff only claimed to have been turned down for credit, while acknowledging that she wasn’t sure how the disputed account impacted her credit score. The plaintiff did not include any evidence that she was unable to obtain credit because of the dispute notation, the judge noted. In fact, the evidence that the plaintiff did provide indicated that it was her poor credit score that led to credit application denials.
- “Plaintiff has not pointed to any evidence that Defendant’s failure to remove the dispute notation affected her creditworthiness or her ability to obtain credit,” Judge Schelp wrote. “She has shown no concrete or actual injury there that can be traced to Defendant’s alleged FDCPA violation.”
- The plaintiff was also unable to link any of the emotional issues or ailments she claimed to have suffered as a result of the defendant’s actions at the feet of the defendant. The plaintiff even testified that her stress came from her poor credit score and the litigation itself, not the inability to remove the dispute notification.
