Having your apartment infested with rodents and still offering to pay the rent and probably being right that a collector’s efforts to verify the reporting of a debt “were cursory and insufficient” were not enough for a plaintiff’s Fair Credit Reporting Act lawsuit to survive a motion for judgment on the pleadings filed by the collection operation, a District Court judge in New York has ruled. Even if a collector’s investigation was minimal, an FCRA claim cannot proceed unless the plaintiff plausibly alleges an inaccuracy that is objectively and readily verifiable, the judge ruled.
The background: The plaintiff rented an apartment and claimed she was forced to vacate after it became infested with rodents. She continued to pay rdnt and asked to have her security deposit used to cover an additional month’s rent if the unit remained vacant. Despite that, the landlord allegedly asserted inconsistent amounts owed, including a so called concession charge that was not referenced in the lease. The landlord later retained the defendant to collect the purported balance.
- The defendant reported a delinquent account to a credit reporting agency. The plaintiff disputed the account in writing and provided documentation highlighting inconsistencies in the balances being claimed.
- After the credit reporting agency advised that the furnisher had verified the debt, the plaintiff sued, alleging violations of both the FCRA and the FDCPA, and claiming the negative reporting caused credit denial and other damages.
The ruling: Judge Brian M. Cogan of the District Court for the Eastern District of New York granted judgment on the pleadings in favor of the defendant on the FCRA claim. The judge emphasized that accuracy is a threshold requirement under Section 1681s-2(b). A plaintiff must allege that the information reported was patently incorrect or misleading in a way that can be objectively and readily verified.
- Here, Judge Cogan held that the existence and amount of the disputed debt depended on unresolved factual and contractual questions that could not be verified through straightforward objective means.
- While the judge acknowledged that the plaintiff was “probably right” that the defendant’s verification efforts were “cursory and insufficient,” he found that point legally irrelevant.
