FCRA Case Analysis

Listen to this article

The decision reverses the governing law in the Seventh Circuit. In Wantz v. Experian Information Solutions, 386 F.3d 829 (7th Cir. 2004), a consumer sued a reporting agency, alleging that it failed to investigate an entry on his credit report.

Discussing “willful failure,” the court held, “to act willfully, a defendant must knowingly and intentionally violate the Act, and it ‘must also be conscious that [its] act impinges on the rights of others.’ (cite omitted).” Wantz, 386 F.3d at 834.

	Related Article Reckless behavior is ‘willful’

The Seventh Circuit iterated this standard in Ruffin-Thompkins v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc., 422 F.3d 603, 610 (7th Cir. 2005).

The result in Ruffin-Thompkins may have been different, had the court applied the definition of “willful failure” adopted by the Supreme Court.

Ruffin-Thompkins did not involve failure to send a notice, as in the cases at bar, but failure to investigate a claim that a credit report was inaccurate. The court expressed sympathy with the plaintiff: “we sympathize with Ruffin-Thompkins’s frustration. It seems that Experian has a systematic problem in its limited categorization of the inquiries it receives and its cryptic notices and responses.” Id.

The Supreme Court’s decision thus may lead to many new cases under the FCRA that would previously have been foreclosed by the Seventh Circuit’s crabbed definition of “willful” in Wantz.

Click here for Main Story.

David Ziemer can be reached by email.