A District Court judge in Illinois has dismissed a Fair Credit Reporting Act lawsuit against a credit reporting agency after finding the plaintiff could not plausibly claim certain accounts on his credit report were unauthorized or inaccurate when he had previously listed those same accounts in his Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing.
The background: The plaintiff alleged he regularly monitored his credit report and discovered multiple accounts he did not recognize or authorize, including accounts associated with several major credit card issuers and a Chapter 7 bankruptcy notation.
- The plaintiff disputed the accounts with the defendant and requested an investigation. According to the complaint, the defendant responded that the accounts had been verified. The plaintiff later requested additional information and proof of verification, but alleged the defendant failed to adequately explain its procedures or properly respond.
- The plaintiff asserted claims under multiple FCRA provisions, including allegations that the defendant failed to conduct a reasonable reinvestigation, failed to provide the method of verification, and failed to update personal information. The plaintiff also asserted claims for defamation and negligent enablement of identity theft.
The ruling: Judge Manish S. Shah of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled that the plaintiff failed to plausibly allege any inaccurate reporting by the defendant.
- The court pointed to public bankruptcy records showing the plaintiff had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy more than a year before the alleged reporting issues and had included the same disputed accounts in his bankruptcy petition. The “Plaintiff cannot plausibly allege that his inability to recognize these accounts was a reporting error by defendant where he had listed these exact accounts in a bankruptcy petition predating his present allegations,” the judge wrote.
- The opinion also noted that even if the plaintiff no longer remembered the accounts, “any failure of recall on his part did not make the report inaccurate.”
- Judge Shah further rejected the plaintiff’s claim that the defendant violated Section 1681g of the FCRA by failing to provide detailed verification procedures, explaining that the FCRA requires disclosure of information contained in a consumer’s file, not a credit bureau’s internal verification methods or procedures.
- The court additionally dismissed the plaintiff’s defamation and negligence claims, finding they were both unsupported by plausible allegations of inaccurate reporting and preempted by the FCRA absent allegations of malice or willful intent to injure the consumer.
