TransUnion Hit with Record $60 Million Dollar Verdict in FCRA Class Action

A California jury recently returned a large verdict in a Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA") case which alleged that TransUnion's credit reporting confused the class consumer names with the names of criminals and terrorists on a government watch list. Five years after lead plaintiff Sergio L. Ramirez filed suit against TransUnion alleging violations of the FCRA, the consumer class was awarded statutory and punitive damages exceeding $60 million. The jury awarded each of the 8,185 class members $984.22 in statutory damages and $6,353.08 in punitive damages. 

TransUnion provides a service to lenders known as the "OFAC Name Screen Alert," which businesses use to comply with the rules of the Treasury Departments' Office of Foreign Assets Control ("OFAC") regarding anti-terror and anti-drug trafficking. Ramirez and the certified class claimed that TransUnion's credit reporting associated each class member with a known terrorist, narcotics trafficker, or money launderer on the OFAC list, but none of the class members were on the list. Specifically, the class brought several claims under the FCRA arguing that TransUnion failed to provide appropriate accuracy in its consumer reports by only matching the first and last name (or an approximation of the same) to associate consumers with persons on the OFAC list.

Moreover, Ramirez and the class argued the OFAC information was not included on credit reports they requested from TransUnion. Instead, class members were notified by separate letter regarding the OFAC information contained in their files. The class successfully argued that TransUnion's letter to class members did not clearly disclose that it was providing the consumer with information from the consumer's file. Lastly, the class successfully argued that the follow-up letter with the OFAC information in the consumer file failed to include a copy of the summary of consumer rights in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1681g(c) of the FCRA.

While TransUnion argued that its procedures were highly protective of consumer rights and consistent with then-contemporaneous industry practices, the jury nonetheless returned a verdict against TransUnion in less than 6 hours. The jury found that TransUnion had failed to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the OFAC information it associated with the members of the class and willfully failed to provide class members a summary of their FCRA rights with each written disclosure.