Judge Colleen McMahon
Claiming identity theft, Jones disputed Experian’s credit report that she owed Central Financial Control (CFC) balances on hospital debts. She later disputed a report that Comcast wrote-off $2,956 as past due. Despite consumer dispute verification forms from CFC and Comcast containing inaccurate information about her birth date, name’s spelling and address, Experian decided to keep the disputed charges on Jones’ credit report. District court denied Experian summary judgment in Jones’ action seeking statutory and punitive damages for its alleged violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act by failing to conduct a reasonable reinvestigation contrary to 15 USC §§1681i and 1681n. In addition to finding that Jones held Article III standing the court determined that given the discrepancies, Experian had to investigate further and not rely on CDC’s and Comcast’s confirmation of account information. Experian provided no evidence of what it did when it received information from CFC and Comcast that did not conform with information Jones provided. Citing Casella v. Equifax Credit Info. Servs. and Northrop v. Hoffman of Simsbury, the court observed that under §1681n, “punitive damages may be available” even where a plaintiff has sustained no actual damages.
