A District Court judge in Florida has granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss claims it violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act related to how it furnished information related to the plaintiff’s bankruptcy filing.
The background: The plaintiff filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition in the Middle District of Florida and received a discharge.
- Several years later, the plaintiff sued the defendant under the FCRA, alleging that the way the bankruptcy was reported on her credit file was inaccurate and misleading.
- Specifically, the plaintiff took issue with the use of a court abbreviation associated with the bankruptcy filing and the presence of certain internal metadata fields tied to address information.
- The plaintiff claimed these issues amounted to inaccurate reporting and that the defendant failed to follow reasonable procedures and failed to properly reinvestigate after disputes.
The ruling: Judge William F. Jung of the District Court for the Middle District of Florida rejected the plaintiff’s claims, concluding that she did not plausibly allege any factual inaccuracy in the way her bankruptcy was reported.
- The judge emphasized that reporting the existence of a bankruptcy filing is not improper and that a bankruptcy discharge does not erase the historical fact that the bankruptcy occurred. As the judge put it, “bankruptcy discharge is merely an injunction against certain means of enforcing a debt, not an expungement of a debt from one’s record.”
- Judge Jung also found that the plaintiff did not allege that any debts were shown as still owed, past due, or outstanding after discharge, which is typically the type of inaccuracy that can support an FCRA claim.
- The plaintiff’s claim that the defendant failed to properly disclose file information was also dismissed. The judge noted that the FCRA’s disclosure requirements apply only when a consumer makes a formal request for their file.
