MORRISON C. ENGLAND, Jr., District Judge.
Through this action, Plaintiff Robert James Anthony ("Plaintiff") seeks damages from Experian Information Solutions Inc. ("Defendant") for wrongfully failing to reasonably investigate Plaintiff's credit disputes and incorrectly reporting his credit information. Presently before the Court is Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, or, in the alternative, Summary Adjudication ("Motion"). Def.'s Mot., ECF No. 41. Plaintiff timely filed an opposition and Defendant timely replied. Pl.'s Opp., ECF No. 44; Def.'s Reply, ECF No. 55. For the reasons set forth below, Defendant's Motion is GRANTED in its entirety.
Plaintiff is a 78-year-old retiree who has lived in South Lake Tahoe since 1969. Pl.'s Compl., ECF No. 1, ¶ 9. Around March 13, 2012, Plaintiff began receiving notices from his account and credit card holders informing him that some of his accounts were closing and his credit limits were being reduced due to poor credit.
Defendant is a credit reporting agency ("CRA") that creates consumer credit reports from information provided by credit grantors ("furnishers"). DSUF, ¶ 3.
Between April 2012 and April 2014, Defendant received five disputes regarding Plaintiff's report. Def.'s Mot. at 5-8; DSUF, ¶¶ 69, 75, 86, 92, 102. Initially, on April 12, 2012, someone used Plaintiff's online account with Defendant to dispute eleven accounts, or items, in Plaintiff's credit file. DSUF, ¶ 69; ECF No. 43, Ex. A1. According to that dispute, the accounts did not belong to Plaintiff, who also requested to see a signature card. ECF No. 43, Ex. A1. Defendant contacted the furnishers associated with those accounts through an Automated Consumer Dispute Verification ("ACDV") process, and based on their responses, deleted one account, updated five accounts (with new information from the furnishers), and verified the remaining five accounts as reported. DSUF, ¶¶ 72-73.
Subsequently, on October 15, 2012, Defendant received another letter from Plaintiff. DSUF, ¶ 75; ECF No. 43, Ex. A4. The letter again disputed eleven accounts in Defendant's consumer file (ten previously disputed in April 2012 and one new account), indicated that Plaintiff did not go by three reported variations of his name (Rob Anthony, Robert Anthony, or Robert J. Anthony),
On December 15, 2012, Plaintiff sent another dispute to Defendant refuting ten accounts as not belonging to him, stating that Plaintiff had never worked for a "Robert J. Anthony," who was his reported employer, and reiterating that Plaintiff has never lived in Roseville or Antelope. ECF No. 43, Ex. A8. Furthermore, this dispute suggested for the first time that Defendant may have mixed Plaintiff's credit history and personal information with his son's, and stated that his son (Robert
On April 19, 2013, Defendant received another letter from Plaintiff disputing seven accounts (all seven had previously been disputed and two accounts were no longer in Plaintiff's credit file). DSUF, ¶ 92. The letter again reiterated that Plaintiff never lived at the Roseville or Antelope addresses and that Plaintiff had never worked for "Robert J. Anthony." ECF No. 43, Ex. A11. It made no mention of Plaintiff's prior theory that his credit history was being mixed with his son's.
Finally, in a March 26, 2014 letter, Plaintiff claimed for the first time that he was the victim of identity theft, providing Defendant a copy of a "police report" in support of this contention. DSUF, ¶102; ECF No. 43, Ex. A14.
In response to this dispute, Defendant mailed three separate letters to Plaintiff on April 5, 2014. DSUF, ¶ 112; ECF No. 43, Ex. A15. The first letter informed Plaintiff that a Security Alert was added to his credit file and provided him with information about his rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA").
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provide for summary judgment when "the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a);
Rule 56 also allows a court to grant summary judgment on part of a claim or defense, known as partial summary judgment.
In a summary judgment motion, the moving party always bears the initial responsibility of informing the court of the basis for the motion and identifying the portions in the record "which it believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact."
In attempting to establish the existence or non-existence of a genuine factual dispute, the party must support its assertion by "citing to particular parts of materials in the record, including depositions, documents, electronically stored information, affidavits[,] or declarations . . . or other materials; or showing that the materials cited do not establish the absence or presence of a genuine dispute, or that an adverse party cannot produce admissible evidence to support the fact." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(1). The opposing party must demonstrate that the fact in contention is material, i.e., a fact that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law.
In resolving a summary judgment motion, the evidence of the opposing party is to be believed, and all reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the facts placed before the court must be drawn in favor of the non-moving party.
Plaintiff claims Defendant failed to comply with requirements under certain provisions of the FCRA, and the California Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act ("CCRAA").
Under the FCRA, 15 U.S.C. § 1681c-2:
15 U.S.C. § 1681c-2(a). CRAs must also notify furnishers of the report and information received from consumers.
According to Defendant, it is entitled to summary judgment because it was not required to block any reporting in this case since Plaintiff's "police report" failed to meet the statutory requirements. In addition, it contends that its request for additional information was reasonable. Plaintiff disagrees, arguing that based on the information provided in the report and Defendant's prior knowledge that Plaintiff claimed his credit history had been mixed with another consumer's, a jury could find that the report was sufficient to trigger Defendant's duties under §1681c-2. Pl.'s Opp'n, at 15. Plaintiff's argument is not well taken.
Plaintiff's online submission was wholly insufficient to trigger Defendant's duties to block the reporting of information. It contained little to no information, did not actually allege any identity theft, and instead again indicated that Plaintiff thought his credit history had been confused with another individual's. Moreover, it was not signed under the penalty of perjury and was instead submitted by counsel. Defendant's request for additional information under the circumstances was entirely reasonable, so reasonable in fact, that these circumstances are expressly contemplated in the applicable regulations. It would have been irresponsible for a CRA to block reporting based solely on the extremely limited information Plaintiff provided. Indeed, accepting Plaintiff's argument would essentially permit consumers the freedom to unilaterally dictate what information is included in their reports. Therefore, the Court finds that even considering all facts in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, a reasonable jury could not find that Defendant's actions were unreasonable or that Defendant violated its duties. Consequently, the Court GRANTS Defendant's Motion as it relates to § 1681c-2.
Plaintiff's claim arising under 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b) fares no better. Section 1681e(b) states that when a CRA prepares a credit report, "it shall follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy." 15 U.C.S. § 1681e(b). The focus of this section is on the reasonableness of a CRA's procedures in obtaining credit information, rather than on a CRA's reasonableness in reinvestigating credit information.
Defendant contends that it is entitled to summary judgment because its procedures were reasonable in that it utilized rigorous quality control and statutory compliance procedures, and had no reason to doubt the reliability of furnishers providing it with Plaintiff's credit information. Def.'s Mot., at 15-16. Plaintiff responds that Defendant did have reason to doubt the furnishers because he brought to Defendant's attention issues with the accuracy of the information furnishers had provided. Pl.'s Opp'n, at 8-10. Further, Plaintiff asserts that had the Defendant contacted him, he could have informed Defendant of the reasons for the inaccuracies in the report.
From a practical perspective, a consumer's dispute of inaccurate information alone cannot call into question a furnisher's credibility because consumers have an incentive to be deceitful about their credit information. As such, allowing them to dictate their own credit history would make credit reports less, rather than more, accurate. Furthermore, in this case the only evidence of unreasonableness that Plaintiff even attempts to proffer relates to Defendant's reinvestigation (§ 1681i, discussed below) rather than it's separate duties in obtaining information (§ 1681e(b)). On this record, there can be no dispute as to the reasonableness of Defendant's latter procedures, and Defendant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law as to Plaintiff's claim under 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b).
Plaintiff's 15 U.S.C. § 1681i reinvestigation claim nonetheless fares no better. As is pertinent to this claim, if a consumer disputes the completeness or accuracy of a credit report and the CRA is notified of the dispute, the CRA has a duty to conduct "a reasonable reinvestigation" to determine the accuracy of the credit information and—if appropriate—update the status of the information or delete it. 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(1)(A). Within five days of receiving the dispute, the CRA must provide a notice of the dispute to the furnisher(s) of the information in question, which notice shall include all relevant information the consumer provided. The CRA has a duty to review and consider all the relevant information as well. 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(2), (4). If after the reinvestigation, the CRA finds an item is inaccurate, incomplete, or unverifiable, the CRA must delete or modify the information and notify furnishers of its actions. 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(5).
The CRA must also provide written notice of the results to the consumer within five days of completing the reinvestigation. 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(6). If the dispute is not resolved at the conclusion of the reinvestigation, the consumer may file a statement regarding the nature of the dispute and the CRA must include it in any subsequent credit reports unless the CRA has reasonable grounds to believe the dispute to be frivolous or irrelevant. 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(b) & (c).
To establish a failure to properly reinvestigate pursuant to the above authorities, Plaintiff must prove that 1) his credit file contained inaccuracies; 2) he notified the defendant of the dispute; 3) his dispute was not frivolous; 4) Defendant failed to respond; and 5) Defendant's failure caused Plaintiff actual damages.
"The Ninth Circuit has not expressly ruled on whether relying on the ACDV system [without more] is reasonable."
The evidence in the record does not support this conclusion. First, there is no evidence that such an alert was ever sent or received. To the contrary, the document Plaintiff relies upon was received in discovery from a third party and is still marked as a draft. Second, it is unclear when this document was drafted in the first place. Plaintiff claims the document is from 2012, but the document itself indicates it was drafted in April 2014. Moreover, discovery responses corroborate that it was a 2014 notice as well. Pl.'s Opp'n, Ex. 2; ECF No. 57, Ex. 1, at 6-7. Given its many flaws, the document is simply insufficient to support the conclusion that Defendant ever received any fraud notice outside of Plaintiff's March 2014 correspondence, to which Defendant reasonably responded. Since Plaintiff failed to provide evidence that could affirmatively demonstrate Defendant was on notice of fraud before it conducted its reinvestigation, or that there was any reason to believe the furnishers' information was suspect, Defendant's reliance on the ACDV process alone is reasonable under § 1681i as a matter of law.
For the reasons discussed above, Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment (ECF No. 41) is GRANTED in its entirety.
