Recent Trends in Class-Action Consumer Finance Litigation - The Consumer Finance Podcast
On July 18, 2025, the Eleventh Circuit rejected the notion that plaintiffs can “manufacture” Article III standing by identifying “self-inflicted harm” such as “expenditure of money and wasted time to correct an otherwise...more
On June 25, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court decided TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, revisiting some of the Article III standing principles it had set forth in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016), and addressing their...more
On June 25, 2021, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in TransUnion v. Ramirez, holding that consumer class action claims under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) must allege the actual spread of misleading...more
The Supreme Court further limited consumer lawsuits in TransUnion, LLC v. Ramirez, siding with credit reporting agency TransUnion in a 5-4 decision holding that thousands of consumers improperly flagged as potential...more
The Supreme Court has granted certiorari to review a $40 million class action trial judgment for statutory and punitive damages under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and its forthcoming decision later this Term will likely be...more
Synopsis: Last month, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion, affirming broad Article III standing and holding that, for permissible-purpose claims, a consumer-plaintiff need allege only that his/her credit report was obtained...more
On March 25, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dealt another setback to plaintiffs trying to establish Article III standing to assert a claim under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681,...more
On Monday, a divided panel of the Ninth Circuit rejected what is perhaps the most common allegation asserted by plaintiffs as a way of achieving standing under FCRA: that, as a result of some alleged misconduct, their credit...more
Plaintiffs’ Other FCRA Claims Survive By “Skin of their Teeth.” In Clements v. Trans Union, LLC, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160931 (Aug. 29, 2018)[1] (“Clements”), a purported class action pending in the United States District...more
The flurry of Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) class actions against employers started in or about 2012 and was not limited to California. Many of those lawsuits resulted in significant payouts for violations of one or more...more
On August 15, 2017, the 9th Circuit, in Thomas Robins v. Spokeo, Inc., reversed the district court’s dismissal of an action alleging willful violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. The 9th...more
In the 9th Circuit’s August 15, 2017 decision in Robins v. Spokeo, the latest in the long-running legal debate about when a consumer cause of action exists for a data breach, the 9th Circuit has declared that inaccuracies in...more
The U.S. Supreme Court held in its 2016 Spokeo decision that for a plaintiff to have standing to assert a claim based on a statutory violation that the plaintiff must have suffered real—and not just legal— harm. Spokeo...more
On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has held in Spokeo v. Robins that an alleged Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) violation was sufficiently concrete to support Article III...more
Last week, the Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of two Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) class actions on Spokeo grounds. The cases, which were consolidated for appeal, were filed by the same plaintiff against two...more
An $11.7 million judgment awarded against credit reporting company Experian in a 69,000-member class action brought under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) was vacated by the Fourth Circuit in Dreher v. Experian...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the plaintiff’s allegations that Experian denied him access to information to which he was entitled under the Fair Credit Reporting Act was insufficient to establish...more
The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has held that a class representative who failed to allege a concrete injury from incomplete or incorrect information on his credit report did not satisfy the standing...more
On May 11, 2017, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a $12 million judgment against Experian Information Solutions, Inc. (“Experian”) in a class action against the credit reporting bureau alleging violations of the...more
The Northern District of California dismissed a Fair Credit Reporting Act case against Lyft upon finding that plaintiff lacked Article III standing based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct....more
On May 16, the Supreme Court issued its Spokeo v. Robins decision. Spokeo was a closely-watched case, as it had the potential to substantially limit federal court jurisdiction in cases where plaintiffs sued for violations of...more