In Spokeo v. Robins, the U.S. Supreme Court had an opportunity to make it much harder for plaintiffs to show they have standing to pursue class actions. Instead, the court handed a narrow victory to the defense bar yesterday that doesn’t go as far as some had hoped.
Thomas Robins brought a class action lawsuit against Spokeo, an online “people search” company, after he discovered that the profile it generated about him contained several inaccurate pieces of personal information. He alleged this inaccurate data impacted his ability to find a job and also to potentially obtain credit. He sued Spokeo on behalf of a similarly situated class for statutory damages under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
