A District Court judge in Maryland has granted a defendant’s motion for summary judgment in a Fair Credit Reporting Act lawsuit accusing it of accessing the plaintiff’s credit report without a permissible purpose, ruling that the defendant needed only a reason to believe it was collecting a debt, even if that belief turned out to be mistaken.
The background: A creditor assigned a delinquent account to the defendant for collection in August 2024.
- That same day, the defendant accessed the plaintiff’s credit report through a soft inquiry.
- The defendant attempted to reach the plaintiff via text message in January 2025, but she did not respond. The creditor recalled the account shortly thereafter, then reassigned it to the defendant in February 2025. Hours after the reassignment, the defendant accessed the plaintiff’s credit report a second time.
- The plaintiff, representing herself, filed suit, alleging the defendant willfully obtained her credit report without a permissible purpose on both occasions and seeking statutory, actual, and punitive damages.
- The plaintiff denied ever owing a debt to the creditor and argued the defendant produced no evidence of the underlying debt to support the reasonableness of its belief that a permissible purpose existed.
- She also objected to the defendant’s evidence, including a declaration from its director of compliance and the account notes, even though her own filings relied on those same exhibits, at one point declaring that the defendant’s “own records tell the entire story.”
- Both sides moved for summary judgment.
The ruling: Judge Julie R. Rubin of the District Court for the District of Maryland granted the defendant’s motion and denied the plaintiff’s motion.
- Collecting a debt is a permissible purpose under the FCRA, so whether the plaintiff consented to the inquiries was irrelevant.
- As long as the defendant had reason to believe it was collecting an outstanding debt, it did not violate the FCRA, even if that belief was mistaken. The standard, the judge noted, “implies that there may be instances where a debt turns out not to be valid.”
- The plaintiff’s affidavit denying she owed the debt did not address the material question, which was whether the defendant acted with a permissible purpose, and she offered no evidence the defendant accessed her report in bad faith.
- Judge Rubin overruled the plaintiff’s evidentiary objections, noting that employees familiar with a company’s record-keeping practices are qualified to attest that documents are admissible business records, and that the plaintiff had seemingly conceded her objections by relying on the same exhibits herself.
- The judge also observed that the plaintiff argued disputes of fact existed to defeat the defendant’s motion while simultaneously claiming none existed for purposes of her own, writing: “It is unclear how material facts that pertain to essential elements of Plaintiff’s claims may at once be in dispute and not in dispute where it suits her.”
