Sessa v. Trans Union, LLC
The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires credit reporting companies to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information included in consumer reports. The Bureau, joined by the Federal Trade Commission, filed a brief arguing that this provision of the FCRA does not contain an exception for legal inaccuracies. This is because, first, the text of the statute makes no distinction between factual and legal inaccuracies, and, second, importing a distinction between factual and legal inaccuracies into the law is unworkable in practice. The brief also argues that information is not rendered “accurate” merely because it is provided by a third-party furnisher, such as a lender, and then passed on unaltered by the consumer reporting company. Moreover, a consumer reporting company’s reliance on a furnisher is not enough to satisfy its obligation to follow reasonable procedures. Whether a consumer reporting company followed reasonable procedures to assure the maximum possible accuracy of the information in a consumer report is a fact-intensive question that generally requires a trier-of-fact to weigh competing evidence.