In a case that was defended by Martin Golden Lyons Watts Morgan with local representation by Smith Debnam, a Magistrate Court judge in South Carolina has recommended that a Fair Credit Reporting Act lawsuit against a debt collector be dismissed because the plaintiff failed to plead facts that the defendant did not have a permissible purpose for accessing his credit report.
The Background: The plaintiff checked his credit report earlier this year and noted there were two inquiries from the defendant — in August 2021 and September 2023 — which the plaintiff claims he did not authorize. The plaintiff filed suit, claiming the defendant violated the FCRA because it accessed his credit report without a permissible purpose.
- The plaintiff claimed that he never initiated a credit transaction with the defendant, did not have an account with the defendant, never entered into a contract with the defendant, and never game permission for the defendant to access his credit report.
- The plaintiff filed suit, accusing the defendant of violating Section 1681b(f) of the FCRA by accessing his credit report intentionally or recklessly. The plaintiff claimed the defendant’s actions were “part of a pattern or practice as evidenced by consumer complaints lodged against the complaint for similar unauthorized access to consumer reports …”
The Ruling: The FCRA does prohibit the furnishing and use of consumer credit reports without a permissible purpose. But to state a claim, a plaintiff must allege, among other things, that the defendant accessed the report without a permissible statutory purpose to do so. Here, the plaintiff did not meet that burden, noted Judge Shiva V. Hodges of the District Court for the District of South Carolina.
- The plaintiff argued the defendant failed to provide any evidence that it had a permissible purpose for accessing his credit report, but Judge Hodges said, “there is no indication in Plaintiff’s complaint that Defendant accessed his credit report for impermissible purposed beyond his unsupported legal conclusions.”
