On May 28, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a judgment issued by a district court judge in U.S. SDNY dismissing a plaintiff-appellant’s claims under the FCRA for allegedly failing to reasonably investigate purported identity theft. The plaintiff alleged the defendant bank failed to conduct a reasonable investigation into her claim of an alleged theft, committed by her mother, to fraudulently open and use a credit card account in her name. Upon discovering the alleged fraud, the plaintiff disputed the account by contacting the bank and notifying the three large credit reporting agencies.
The district court had granted summary judgment to the bank after concluding no reasonable investigation required by the FCRA would have yielded a different result and that the plaintiff failed to present any issues of fact that could be tried. On appeal, the plaintiff argued SDNY erred in its conclusion regarding a reasonable investigation and in finding the bank did not willfully violate the FCRA. The appellate court was not persuaded by the plaintiff’s arguments. It noted that while the FCRA requires credit reporting furnishers to conduct investigations into consumer disputes, “it does not guarantee that the results of those investigations will favor the consumer lodging the dispute.” According to the appellate court, the FCRA “does not require furnishers to conduct perfect investigations.”
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