The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has affirmed summary judgment for a background check company sued under the Fair Credit Reporting Act after it reported a speeding ticket that belonged not to the plaintiff, but to the plaintiff’s identical twin brother.
The background: The plaintiff, a seasonal employee at a parks district, applied for a full-time maintenance position, and his employer ordered a background check from the defendant.
- The criminal section of the report listed a conviction for “Speeding 24 Mph Over Limit,” even though the motor vehicle section of the same report showed a clean driving record.
- A human resources employee flagged the discrepancy and asked the plaintiff’s supervisor to make sure he was not speeding in any district vehicles, and the supervisor told the plaintiff the ticket was not “a very good look.”
- A second background check returned the same ticket, but the plaintiff was offered the job anyway, accepted it, and started on schedule.
- The defendant mailed adverse action notices informing the plaintiff of his right under the FCRA to dispute the reports. Rather than dispute them, he sued, alleging the defendant failed to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy.
- During discovery, the defendant explained that an employee searched the state courts’ website using the plaintiff’s name and date of birth. The search surfaced the brother’s ticket because a municipal court had grouped the twins together under a single “case jacket,” listing the plaintiff as an alias for his brother.
The ruling: The Appeals Court affirmed, with Judge Jonathan A. Kobes writing that the FCRA “is not a strict liability statute” and that a reporting agency is not liable when information from a source it reasonably believes is reputable turns out to be wrong, absent notice of systemic problems.
- Judge Kobes found the defendant’s reliance on the official state courts’ website reasonable, noting that holding otherwise would force agencies to look behind the face of court records.
- A boilerplate disclaimer that the website might contain errors did not change the outcome, and neither did the conflict between the reported ticket and the clean driving record, since the two sections drew from different sources and it was “not uncommon” for them to disagree.
- The judge rejected the argument that the defendant needed written procedures for twins, pointing out that the plaintiff never claimed the defendant knew he had one, and that the court’s own “case jacket” treated the brothers as the same person.
- He likewise rejected the claim that the defendant ignored its policy of matching full names and dates of birth, noting the record showed both employees reported the ticket precisely because the name and birth date matched.
- He also dismissed the point that a separate court docketing report listed two different driver’s license numbers, finding no evidence the employees ever saw it and that mismatched first names and license numbers were not the kind of obvious error requiring the defendant to dig deeper.
- Because reasonable procedures were followed, the court did not reach whether the plaintiff suffered any actual damages.
