In Farmer v. The Phillips Agency, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia denied a plaintiff’s motion to certify a class action, under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, consisting of all individuals who had been the subject of an adverse criminal-background report, whether accurate or inaccurate, generated by defendant The Phillips Agency. In doing so, the Northern District of Georgia became the first court to explicitly state that a plaintiff bringing claims under the FCRA must establish that the underlying consumer report was not "complete and up to date."
The defendant, The Phillips Agency, is a small, family-owned consumer reporting agency. It has an impressive record for accuracy over a five-year period, The Phillips Agency generated nearly 15,000 consumer reports that contained some adverse information, ranging from serious felony convictions to minor traffic and other summary infractions. During the same period, the agency received just four consumer disputes, and each of these was promptly resolved.
