Jeffrey Chaitoff v. Experian Information Solutions

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 21-2632 JEFFREY CHAITOFF, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. EXPERIAN INFORMATION SOLUTIONS, INC., Defendant-Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:18-cv-7259 — Virginia M. Kendall, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED OCTOBER 24, 2022 — DECIDED AUGUST 14, 2023 ____________________ Before HAMILTON, ST. EVE, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. KIRSCH, Circuit Judge. In a nation of 330 million people, bil- lions of pieces of credit information are generated each year. Mistakes in compiling and reporting that information are in- evitable. Jeﬀrey Chaitoﬀ sued under the Fair Credit Reporting Act alleging that Experian made a mistake when it omitted a fact from his credit report, then failed to correct its error. Chaitoﬀ signed an agreement with his mortgage lender that allowed him to make lower payments and avoid foreclosure. 2 No. 21-2632 Rather than report the agreement, Chaitoﬀ’s credit report said that he was delinquent. The district court determined that any dispute about the agreement’s existence or eﬀect was a legal dispute, meaning Experian was immune from FCRA liability for any errors re- lated to it. We disagree. First, we hold that the omission of material information is actionable under the FCRA. Second, we hold that reporting the existence of the agreement did not involve the application of law to facts, so was not a legal error. We reverse the district court’s conclusion otherwise. The district court also concluded that Experian’s handling of the situation was reasonable across the board, thus entitling it to summary judgment on alternative grounds. We disagree in part. Experian’s initial reporting eﬀorts were reasonable be- yond any doubt, so it earned summary judgment on that claim, and we aﬃrm that portion of the district court’s judg- ment. But we disagree with the district court as to Experian’s investigations after Chaitoﬀ alerted it to the discrepancy. A reasonable jury could ﬁnd that there was a cost-eﬀective step Experian could have taken that would have discovered the agreement’s existence. Finally, we agree with Chaitoﬀ that Experian failed to note his dispute in later reports, as the FCRA requires. We there- fore aﬃrm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. I Consumers borrow money to fund expenses large and small. Deciding who gets credit and on what terms falls to what we will call furnishers—most people know them as lenders or creditors. To facilitate their lending decisions, No. 21-2632 3 furnishers rely on credit reports generated by consumer re- porting agencies, or CRAs. Furnishers send CRAs infor- mation about consumers’ income, assets, liabilities, and pay- ment history. CRAs then compile those data into standard- ized reports and, in many cases, distill it to a number—a credit score—that aﬀects whether, how much, and on what terms a consumer can borrow. Because furnishers give credit reports and scores extraordinary weight, they underpin the national economy, and are thus the subject of federal legisla- tion. A Congress enacted the Fair Credit Reporting Act, codiﬁed at 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq., “to ensure fair and accurate credit reporting, promote eﬃciency in the banking system, and pro- tect consumer privacy.” Safeco Ins. Co. of Am. v. Burr, 551 U.S. 47, 52 (2007). To accomplish those goals, the FCRA tries to en- sure that “consumer reporting agencies exercise their grave responsibilities with fairness, impartiality, and a respect for the consumer’s right to privacy.” 15 U.S.C. § 1681(a)(4). One of the FCRA’s cornerstones is § 1681e, which de- mands that CRAs “follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates.” Accuracy is not deﬁned in the statute, but it has long been understood that “accuracy” encompasses both truth and completeness—a re- port that is misleading or materially incomplete is inaccurate. E.g., Koropoulos v. Credit Bureau, Inc., 734 F.2d 37, 39−42 (D.C. Cir. 1984); Seamans v. Temple Univ., 744 F.3d 853, 865 (3d Cir. 2014). 4 No. 21-2632 When a consumer contends that his credit report is inac- curate or incomplete, he can dispute his report with the CRA that prepared it. The CRA is then obligated to conduct a “rea- sonable reinvestigation to determine whether the disputed in- formation is inaccurate,” 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(1)(A), consider- ing “[a]ll relevant information submitted by the consumer.” Id. § 1681i(a)(4). “If the reinvestigation does not resolve the dispute,” § 1681i(b) allows a consumer to “ﬁle a brief state- ment setting forth the nature of the dispute.” If a consumer elects to do so, “unless there is reasonable grounds to believe that it is frivolous or irrelevant, the consumer reporting agency shall, in any subsequent consumer report containing the information in question, clearly note that it is disputed by the consumer and provide either the consumer’s statement or a clear and accurate codiﬁcation or summary thereof.” Id. § 1681i(c). Negligent violations of these provisions are action- able under § 1681o; willful violations carry additional penal- ties and are actionable under § 1681n. B Jeﬀrey Chaitoﬀ bought a home in 1995. He reﬁnanced his mortgage through Ocwen Loan Servicing in 2012. When he lost his job in 2016, Chaitoﬀ fell behind on his payments, and Ocwen began reporting the delinquency. Chaitoﬀ remained at least six months behind from October 2016 until August 2017. Throughout that period, Chaitoﬀ tried diﬀerent things to avoid foreclosure. First, Chaitoﬀ entered into an unemploy- ment forbearance plan in August 2016 that allowed him to make very low payments to avoid foreclosure. Then, in April 2017, Ocwen sent Chaitoﬀ an oﬀer to enter into a Trial Period Plan (TPP). If Chaitoﬀ completed the Plan, his monthly No. 21-2632 5 payment would be reduced and his account would be brought current—that is, he would no longer be delinquent. To adopt the Plan, Chaitoﬀ had to make three reduced payments, one in each of May, June, and July 2017. Those pay- ments, in turn, would be credited to his most delinquent months. In other words, although Chaitoﬀ would write checks in May, June, and July, he would not be making those months’ payments because the funds would be applied to his oldest delinquencies. Critically for our purposes, the Plan documents made clear that Ocwen “would continue to report the delinquency status of [Chaitoﬀ’s] loan to credit reporting agencies as well as [his] entry into a Trial Period Plan in ac- cordance with the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Consumer Data Industry Association require- ments.” Ocwen warned Chaitoﬀ that entering into a Plan, es- pecially if he was current on his payments, could adversely aﬀect his credit score. Chaitoﬀ accepted Ocwen’s oﬀer, made the Plan’s three reduced payments, and his loan was modiﬁed accordingly. Chaitoﬀ eventually sold the home. Chaitoﬀ tried to obtain a mortgage to purchase another home but was denied. A would-be lender informed him that his denial was based on information in a credit report pre- pared by Experian—one of the three major CRAs. When Chaitoﬀ requested his Experian report, he discovered what he believed were errors in his ﬁle related to his Ocwen mortgage: His report noted that he was delinquent until August 2017, and it never mentioned the TPP. 6 No. 21-2632 Chaitoﬀ ﬁrst disputed those errors with Experian in May 2018. His dispute letter stated: The Ocwen trade line on my credit report is re- porting inaccurate, false, and misleading infor- mation. … As you can see from the attached documentation, in April 2017, the loan was modified after I came upon financial hardship, and my monthly payments were decreased. *** Since the modification, and agreed decrease in amount due, I made each monthly payment on time consistently throughout 2017. In accord- ance with the modification agreement and my timely payments, the trade line should reflect that the payments were made timely. The fail- ure to report this information is misleading lenders into believing that I did not make pay- ments throughout 2017. *** Please also review the attached April 17, 2018 letter stating that my modification payments were being made timely. As you can see, there is reason to believe Ocwen is reporting errone- ously. Chaitoﬀ attached Ocwen’s conﬁrmation that his “trial pay- ments for the modiﬁcation were completed on time. The due dates were May 1, 2017, June 1, 2017, and July 1, 2017.” Chaitoﬀ also attached Ocwen’s original TPP oﬀer letter, but he did not attach the TPP’s complete terms. No. 21-2632 7 Experian processed the dispute through its Automated Consumer Dispute Veriﬁcation (ACDV) system, which trans- mitted Chaitoﬀ’s letter and attachments to Ocwen. See § 1681i(a)(2)(A) (requiring CRAs to transmit “all relevant in- formation regarding the dispute” that it receives from the consumer to the furnisher). Ocwen conﬁrmed that Experian’s reporting was correct—it reported that Chaitoﬀ was six months behind from January through July 2017. Experian then reported the results to Chaitoﬀ and stood by its original reporting. Chaitoﬀ ﬁled a substantially similar dispute letter in July 2018. He maintained that he “made each monthly payment on time consistently throughout 2017.” Experian did the same thing it did the ﬁrst time: sent an ACDV request to Ocwen, which conﬁrmed exactly what it had reported all along. In 2019, Ocwen asked that the account be deleted from Chaitoﬀ’s report. C Chaitoﬀ then sued Experian alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Chaitoﬀ made three claims. First, he al- leged that Experian negligently and willfully failed to follow reasonable procedures to ensure the maximum possible accu- racy of its reports, in contravention of § 1681e(b). Second, Chaitoﬀ alleged that Experian negligently and willfully failed to reasonably reinvestigate the accuracy of its reporting after his letters alerted it to the potential errors, in contravention of § 1681i(a). Finally, Chaitoﬀ alleged that Experian failed to in- clude a statement of dispute in its subsequent reporting ex- plaining Chaitoﬀ’s view that his Ocwen loan should be re- ported, in contravention of § 1681i(c). 8 No. 21-2632 Experian moved for summary judgment, contending that its reporting was accurate. It argued that the existence and ef- fect of Chaitoﬀ’s TPP were both legal questions beyond its competency to resolve. Even if its reporting were inaccurate, Experian argued that it was entitled to summary judgment because its policies and reinvestigation were both reasonable beyond dispute. Experian’s ﬁnal argument was that Chaitoﬀ hadn’t demonstrated any harm from the purported inaccura- cies. The district court granted Experian’s motion. It concluded that there was nothing inaccurate about Experian’s report be- cause Chaitoﬀ’s dispute was with how Ocwen had reported the TPP. The district court reasoned that Chaitoﬀ’s gripe was “about the legal accuracy of his loan modiﬁcation, but not the factual accuracy.” And since the FCRA does not require Ex- perian to evaluate unadjudicated legal defenses to consum- ers’ debts, there was nothing inaccurate about the report Ex- perian prepared. The district court alternatively concluded that the reasonableness of Experian’s procedures and reinves- tigation was beyond dispute, thus entitling it to summary judgment despite any inaccuracy. The district court said noth- ing about Chaitoﬀ’s third claim. Nor did the district court reach Experian’s third argument (about harm), so we say no more on the subject. Chaitoﬀ sought reconsideration, which the district court denied. This timely appeal follows. II We give no deference to a district court’s grant of sum- mary judgment. And like the district court, we view the facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party—here, Chaitoﬀ. No. 21-2632 9 A CRA’s liability under both § 1681e(b) and § 1681i(a) de- pends on inaccurate information—if the credit report is accu- rate, the consumer has suﬀered no damages. See DeAndrade v. Trans Union LLC, 523 F.3d 61, 66−68 (1st Cir. 2008); Chuluunbat v. Experian Info. Sols., Inc., 4 F.4th 562, 567 (7th Cir. 2021) (“A threshold requirement for claims under both sections is that there must be an inaccuracy in the consumer’s credit report.”). Chaitoﬀ argues that his Experian report was inaccurate in two ways. First Chaitoﬀ argues that Experian’s report was inaccurate because it reported his Ocwen mortgage as delinquent in May, June, and July 2017. We disagree. The TPP’s terms stated that Chaitoﬀ’s account would be reported delinquent until the TPP’s conditions were satisﬁed and that his payments un- der the TPP would be applied to his most-delinquent months. Although Chaitoﬀ may have sent Ocwen payments in each of May, June, and July 2017, those payments were applied to ear- lier delinquent months in accordance with the TPP’s terms. Experian’s reporting of those three months as delinquent was accurate beyond any doubt. The district court recognized as much, and we agree. We therefore aﬃrm the district court’s grant of summary judgment as it relates to Experian’s report- ing of the May, June, and July 2017 payments. Chaitoﬀ fares better on his second alleged inaccuracy—the omission of his TPP from his credit report. The district court granted summary judgment after concluding that Experian could not be liable for omitting Chaitoﬀ’s TPP from its report- ing. After taking a fresh look, we disagree. Chaitoﬀ alleged (1) an inaccuracy in his credit report that (2) adversely af- fected his creditworthiness and (3) was within the compe- tency of a CRA to identify and correct. We take each in turn. 10 No. 21-2632 A Experian concedes that the omission of material infor- mation can render technically accurate information mislead- ing and, thus, actionable under the FCRA. It is right to do so. Courts have long understood that, when it comes to the FCRA, “accurate” means more than just “technically correct.” E.g., Koropoulos v. Credit Bureau, Inc., 734 F.2d 37, 40 (D.C. Cir. 1984). But somehow we have never resolved whether an omis- sion constitutes an inaccuracy under § 1681e(b) and § 1681i(a). We avoided the question in Henson v. CSC Credit Services, 29 F.3d 280, 285 n.4 (7th Cir. 1994), but can no longer do so: A credit report is inaccurate under § 1681e(b) and § 1681i(a) if it omits accurate information that could reasona- bly be expected to adversely aﬀect a consumer’s creditworthi- ness. (In the interest of brevity, at times we refer in this section only to § 1681e(b); the analysis and conclusions are the same as to § 1681i(a).) We recently adopted this materially misleading standard for another of the FCRA’s provisions, § 1681s-2, which gov- erns furnishers’ responsibilities when reporting information to CRAs. In Frazier v. Dovenmuehle Mortgage, Inc., 72 F.4th 769 (7th Cir. 2023), we held that to sue under that section, a con- sumer must show that his report was “(1) patently incorrect, or (2) materially misleading, including by omission.” Id. at 776. We added that, “[b]y materially misleading, we mean ‘misleading in such a way and to such an extent that it can be expected to adversely aﬀect credit decisions.’” Id. (quoting Sepulvado v. CSC Credit Servs., Inc., 158 F.3d 890, 895 (5th Cir. 1998)). In adopting that standard, Frazier joined us with every other circuit to consider the question. Id. at 776 n.5 (collecting cases). No. 21-2632 11 But Experian is not a furnisher, so § 1681s-2 is, by its own terms, inapplicable. Chaitoﬀ’s claims against Experian is un- der § 1681e(b), and the text of the two sections diﬀer. Sec- tion 1681s-2 at times uses “incomplete or inaccurate.” E.g., 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b)(1)(E). Section 1681e, on the other hand, speaks only in terms of “maximum possible accuracy.” One might draw the inference, then, that accuracy and complete- ness are diﬀerent, and that § 1681e is thus unconcerned with omissions. We think not. While we acknowledge the textual diﬀer- ences between § 1681s-2 and § 1681e, those diﬀerences do not compel a rule allowing CRAs oﬀ the hook for omitting mate- rial facts. Frazier and its counterparts addressing § 1681s-2 de- ﬁne accuracy by reference to cases addressing § 1681e(b). See, e.g., Gorman v. Wolpoﬀ & Abramson, LLP, 584 F.3d 1147, 1163 (9th Cir. 2009) (§ 1681s-2 case citing Sepulvado, 158 F.3d at 895, a § 1681e(b) case); Carvalho v. Equifax Info. Servs., LLC, 629 F.3d 876, 890 (9th Cir. 2010); Chiang v. Verizon New Eng. Inc., 595 F.3d 26, 37 (1st Cir. 2010) (treating “inaccurate” in § 1681i(a) “essentially the same” as “incomplete or inaccurate” in § 1681s-2(b)). The Fourth Circuit recognized the overlap in analysis and results: Although the majority of cases involve the duty of a CRA to report accurately under § 1681e, BB & T concedes that the same standard of ac- curacy applies to a furnisher’s response under § 1681s-2. Both § 1681e and § 1681s-2 serve the same purpose: ensuring accuracy in consumer credit reporting. A CRA can best fulfill its obli- gation to report accurately under § 1681e if it 12 No. 21-2632 receives accurate information from a furnisher under § 1681s-2. Saunders v. Branch Banking & Tr. Co. of Va., 526 F.3d 142, 148 n.3 (4th Cir. 2008). To be sure, courts cannot engage in textual adverse possession, relying on a practice of misreading a stat- ute to justify continued deviation from plain text. But the text of § 1681e(b) is far from plain. The FCRA never deﬁnes “accu- racy,” let alone “maximum possible accuracy.” Like our sister circuits, we look to context to give meaning to the text of § 1681e(b). And however ambiguous the text may be, the con- text is clear: material omissions render a credit report inaccu- rate. One of the earliest cases to recognize the need to treat ma- terial omissions as inaccuracies was Alexander v. Moore & As- sociates, Inc., 553 F. Supp. 948 (D. Haw. 1982). There, the court explained the diﬀerence between “accurate” and “maximum possible accuracy” by reference to a credit report stating that a consumer was “involved” in a credit card scam without not- ing that the consumer was a victim of the scam. Id. at 952. That the consumer was a victim of a scam creates an impression that is the polar opposite of that created by the statement that she was “involved” in a scam. For a statute designed to pro- mote accuracy, false impressions can be just as damaging as false information. E.g., Cortez v. Trans Union, LLC, 617 F.3d 688, 709−10 (3d Cir. 2010) (“Congress surely did not intention- ally weave an exception into the fabric of the FCRA that would destroy its remedial scheme by allowing a credit re- porting agency to escape responsibility for its carelessness whenever misleading information ﬁnds its way into a credit report through the agency of a third party.”). Section 1681i(a)(5)(A) conﬁrms this understanding; it requires CRAs No. 21-2632 13 to delete information if its reasonable reinvestigation of a dis- pute ﬁnds the information “inaccurate or incomplete” (empha- sis added). For the FCRA to make sense, then, “accuracy” un- der § 1681e(b) must encompass both truthfulness and com- pleteness. The alternative rule—that omissions are not action- able—would dilute § 1681e(b)’s command for “maximum possible accuracy” to a request for “minimal technical accu- racy.” Thus, a credit report that creates a materially mislead- ing impression of the borrower’s creditworthiness through the omission of accurate information is not accurate under § 1681e(b). Of course, an inaccuracy is a necessary, but not suﬃcient, condition for holding a CRA liable under § 1681e(b). We hold only that, as with § 1681s-2, a material omission satisﬁes that condition. B All agree that Experian’s report said nothing about Chaitoﬀ’s TPP. The question then becomes whether that omission is material—whether it “can be expected to ad- versely aﬀect credit decisions.” Frazier, 72 F.4th at 776. Ex- perian does not meaningfully contest the premise. And for good reason: it requires little imagination to see how the omis- sion of a TPP might aﬀect a consumer’s creditworthiness. Say two debtors have identical credit reports showing pat- terns of delinquent payments. Neither is likely to obtain credit on favorable terms, if at all. Now imagine one of the debtors completed a TPP with her creditors, but that fact is not re- ported in her credit ﬁle. The debtor without the TPP has no evidence that she can make timely and complete payments, but the debtor who completed the TPP does. The Sixth Circuit recognized as much. Reporting that a consumer “was delin- quent on his loan payments without reporting the TPP 14 No. 21-2632 implies a much greater degree of ﬁnancial irresponsibility.” Pittman v. Experian Info. Sols., 901 F.3d 619, 639 (6th Cir. 2018). The Eleventh Circuit recognized the ﬂip side of this rule in Felts v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 893 F.3d 1305, 1318−19 (11th Cir. 2018):“[I]t was not misleading for Wells Fargo to report that [the plaintiﬀ] was not making payments under the Note as agreed, particularly in light of Wells Fargo’s additional state- ment that [the plaintiﬀ] was paying under a partial payment agreement.” Because a TPP gives potential furnishers more accurate information on a consumer’s creditworthiness, omit- ting it precludes “maximum possible accuracy.” C After clearing the ﬁrst two hurdles, Chaitoﬀ’s § 1681e(b) and § 1681i(a) claim stumbled on the third. The district court determined that Chaitoﬀ’s dispute “lies with Ocwen about their reporting to Experian of his loan modiﬁcation.” From this premise, the district court determined that Chaitoﬀ’s claim is “about the legal accuracy of his loan modiﬁcation, but not the factual accuracy.” We disagree. The existence of a TPP is a factual, not legal, question within the competency of a CRA to identify and correct. We have long held that CRAs are not well suited to adju- dicate legal defenses to a debt, so they are not liable for re- porting information that may be legally inaccurate. Put an- other way, while “accuracy” may mean more than just “tech- nically correct,” it never reaches beyond questions of fact. Although the line separating legal from factual questions can be slippery, two of our recent opinions have sharpened it. Denan v. Trans Union LLC, 959 F.3d 290 (7th Cir. 2020), involved consumers who borrowed from Indian tribes at No. 21-2632 15 interest rates prohibited by state usury laws. Id. at 292−93. They contended their credit reports were inaccurate because they reported the debts even though the debts were (to their minds) uncollectible (since they violated state law). Id. at 293. We held that the alleged inaccuracies were legal, rather than factual, because determining whether the debts were enforceable required applying choice-of-law and sovereign- immunity principles to an undisputed set of facts. Id. at 295. “The power to resolve these legal issues exceeds the competencies of consumer reporting agencies.” Id. Denan reﬂects the classic case of a legal dispute: Everyone agreed that the consumers borrowed the amounts reﬂected on their credit reports, but the parties disputed whether the furnishers could do anything about those debts. The CRA could not resolve that dispute—only a court could. And since no amount of investigation by the CRA could substitute for a binding adjudication of the parties’ legal dispute, the CRA’s reporting was accurate. In Chuluunbat v. Experian Information Solutions, 4 F.4th 562, (7th Cir. 2021), consumers challenged the accuracy of their credit reports by disputing to whom their debts were owed. Id. at 564. We held that dispute to be legal. Id. at 565. “[A]s with a pure challenge to a debt’s legal validity, the plaintiﬀs here question the legal relationship of diﬀerent parties to these debts, which is a task for a court.” Id. at 568. Chuluunbat reaﬃrmed one of our seminal cases on the FCRA, Henson v. CSC Credit Services, 29 F.3d 280 (7th Cir. 1994), where we said that CRAs could not be required “to go beyond the face of numerous court records to determine whether they correctly report the outcome of the underlying action.” Id. at 285. “Re- quiring credit reporting agencies to look beyond the face of every court document to ﬁnd the rare case when a document 16 No. 21-2632 incorrectly reports the result of the underlying action would be unduly burdensome and ineﬃcient.” Id. at 285−86. Without notice from a consumer that a court document may be erro- neous, a CRA “may rely on the accuracy of public court doc- uments in preparing a credit report without being subject to liability under the FCRA.” Id. at 286. Unstated but implicit in Henson is that CRAs can read and understand legal docu- ments. “The paradigmatic example of a legal dispute is when a consumer argues that although his debt exists and is reported in the right amount, it is invalid due to a violation of law.” Chuluunbat, 4 F.4th at 567. In other words, legal disputes amount to collateral attacks on the disputed debt. But while “[t]aking notice of a previously resolved legal dispute in- volves some knowledge of the legal impact of court decisions, [ ] it does not require the consumer reporting agency to make any legal determinations about the underlying claim.” Id. at 568. Whether Chaitoﬀ’s TPP existed is a factual question be- cause Experian was not asked to apply law to facts. Nothing in Chaitoﬀ’s complaint can be read to collaterally attack his Ocwen mortgage. Rather, Chaitoﬀ asked that his credit report reﬂect his TPP, something well within Experian’s capabilities. It is, after all, a credit reporting agency. Nothing about Chaitoﬀ’s alleged inaccuracy required Experian to investigate beyond the face of the documents it was provided. Henson held that CRAs act reasonably when they rely on legal docu- ments of unquestioned authenticity. Chuluunbat recognized the ﬂip side of the rule: a CRA might be liable if it ignores or overlooks documents of unquestioned authenticity, even if they relate to a legal dispute. Such is the case here. The No. 21-2632 17 existence of Chaitoﬀ’s TPP was a factual—not legal—dispute, and the district court was wrong to conclude otherwise. We are not the ﬁrst to reach this conclusion. Pittman held that “failing to report the existence of [a] TPP constitutes in- complete reporting.” 901 F.3d at 639. Pittman involved a fur- nisher’s, rather than a CRA’s, failure to report a TPP, and the district court sought to distinguish Pittman along that line. It narrowed Pittman to furnishers only: “Nothing in [Pittman] could be construed to hold a consumer reporting agency lia- ble for reporting accurate information regarding the TPP that it received from the loan servicer.” That begs the question, though. Whether a CRA is ultimately liable under § 1681e(b) or § 1681i(a) is distinct from whether its reporting was accu- rate. Experian tries to distinguish Mileva v. Trans Union, LLC, No. 20-cv-123 2021 WL 1172704 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 29, 2021), on the same grounds, but that opinion correctly recognized that “the failure to report the existence of the Plan or the trial pe- riod payments [can] create[] at least a triable issue of fact as to whether the [CRA’s] credit report created a materially mis- leading impression about Plaintiﬀ’s payment and credit his- tory.” Id. at *7 (citing Pittman, 901 F.3d at 639). Given today’s holding that a material omission is actionable under § 1681e(b) and § 1681s-2 alike, Mileva was prescient. While there may be a separate legal dispute about whether the debtor in fact entered into a TPP with his furnisher, that is not this case. See Brill v. TransUnion LLC, 838 F.3d 919 (7th Cir. 2016) (aﬃrming dismissal where consumer proposed that CRA hire a handwriting expert to determine whether he signed loan documents). Here, all agree that Chaitoﬀ entered into a TPP and that Experian would have known about it based on the documents Chaitoﬀ sent it. Given the FCRA’s 18 No. 21-2632 command for maximal accuracy, the omission of Chaitoﬀ’s TPP was a misleading factual inaccuracy that can give rise to liability under § 1681e(b). The district court’s contrary conclu- sion was incorrect. The FCRA may place diﬀerent investiga- tive obligations on furnishers and CRAs, but the end goal is the same: an accurate credit report. And a credit report that omits a TPP is not accurate. We see no reason to treat a TPP any diﬀerently than the myriad legal documents CRAs deal with day in and day out. Experian argues that Chaitoﬀ never challenged the omis- sion of the TPP from his credit report, but even a cursory glance at his brieﬁng below and the district court’s opinion shows that’s incorrect. We likewise reject Experian’s fallback position on waiver—that Chaitoﬀ’s disputes should have been more explicit about the alleged omission. The FCRA is a remedial statute designed to protect consumers. See Sullivan v. Greenwood Credit Union, 520 F.3d 70, 73 n.3 (1st Cir. 2008). That Chaitoﬀ’s letters could have been clearer does not pre- clude relief; it may make relief less likely given the statute’s requirement for only “reasonable” procedures. But in the era of notice pleading, Chaitoﬀ’s complaint alleging that Ex- perian’s reporting of his Ocwen loan was “false, misleading, and inaccurate” was more than enough to allow Experian to defend itself. That it did so with the TPP’s own terms dispels any notion of waiver. III Even when inaccurate information makes its way into a credit report, a CRA’s liability under both § 1681e(b) and § 1681i(a) turns on whether a CRA acted reasonably. Since § 1681e(b) asks whether a CRA adopted “reasonable proce- dures to assure maximum possible accuracy,” summary No. 21-2632 19 judgment may be appropriate when a CRA adopted proce- dures no jury could ﬁnd unreasonable. Similarly, § 1681i(a) requires only “reasonable reinvestigations.” Chaitoﬀ alleges that Experian neither enforced reasonable policies nor con- ducted reasonable reinvestigations. We disagree with Chaitoﬀ and agree with the district court that Experian’s pol- icies were reasonable as a matter of law, so we aﬃrm its grant of summary judgment as to Chaitoﬀ’s § 1681e(b) claim. But we conclude that a reasonable jury could ﬁnd that, after being put on notice of the alleged inaccuracy in Chaitoﬀ’s report, Experian’s reinvestigations of his dispute were unreasonable. We therefore reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment as to Chaitoﬀ’s § 1681i(a) claim. A “The reasonableness of a reporting agency’s procedures is normally a question for trial unless the reasonableness or un- reasonableness of the procedures is beyond question.” Sarver v. Experian Info. Sols., 390 F.3d 969, 971 (7th Cir. 2004). We agree with the district court that Experian’s reliance on Ocwen’s initial reporting was reasonable beyond dispute. Chaitoﬀ alleges a material omission from his credit report. But to Experian, Chaitoﬀ’s TPP was an unknown unknown. Without notice of the alleged omission, Experian had no rea- son to suspect that Ocwen’s reporting was incomplete. Ocwen is a major ﬁnancial institution, and Experian regularly relies on its reporting. See Sarver, 390 F.3d at 972 (explaining that requiring CRAs to engage in background research on infor- mation furnished by ﬁnancial institutions would balloon the costs of their services, which in turn would be passed to con- sumers). Chaitoﬀ did not oﬀer any evidence suggesting that Experian knew of the TPP based on the information Ocwen 20 No. 21-2632 furnished or that there were systemic problems with Ocwen’s data. Furnishers bear responsibility for accurately reporting information to CRAs in the ﬁrst instance. See 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2; Denan, 959 F.3d at 294−95. Given Ocwen’s demon- strated reliability, it was reasonable for Experian to trust that Ocwen’s original information was complete and accurate. See Sarver, 390 F.3d at 972 (CRA’s procedures not unreasonable unless the agency has reason to believe a furnisher’s infor- mation is unreliable); see also Losch v. Nationstar Mortg. LLC, 995 F.3d 937, 945 n.6 (11th Cir. 2021) (aﬃrming summary judgment under § 1681e(b) for reports prepared with reliable information before CRA had notice of alleged inaccuracy). This is not to say that a material omission can never give rise to liability under § 1681e(b). Whether a CRA’s procedures are reasonable turns, predictably, on balancing the costs of a marginal return to accuracy against the potential harm to con- sumers from declining to incur those costs. See, e.g., Brill, 838 F.3d at 921 (“Forcing a credit reporting agency to hire a hand- writing expert in every case of alleged forgery would impose an expense disproportionate to the likelihood of an accurate resolution of the dispute.”); Henson, 29 F.3d at 287 (“The credit reporting agency’s duty will also depend on the cost of veri- fying the accuracy of the source versus the possible harm in- accurately reported information may cause the consumer.”); cf. United States v. Carroll Towing Co., 159 F.2d 169 (2d Cir. 1947). But Chaitoﬀ never proposed an additional reasonable measure Experian could have taken to detect the omission of his TPP before he ﬂagged the issue; doing so might have shown a dispute about the reasonableness of Experian’s cur- rent procedures. Nor did Chaitoﬀ oﬀer evidence that Ex- perian failed to follow its standard procedures in his case. On the record before us, no jury could ﬁnd Experian’s procedures No. 21-2632 21 unreasonable, so we aﬃrm the district court’s grant of sum- mary judgment as to Chaitoﬀ’s § 1681e(b) claim. B When a consumer disputes an item in his credit report with a CRA, the CRA’s ﬁrst step is to transmit that dispute to the furnisher. 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(2). The furnisher then in- vestigates the consumer’s dispute and reports its ﬁndings to the CRA. The CRA then must conduct a “reasonable reinves- tigation” of the dispute. Id. § 1681i(a)(1)(A). Chaitoﬀ argues that Experian did not reasonably reinves- tigate either of his disputes. The district court rejected his claims, concluding that Experian’s reinvestigations were rea- sonable as a matter of law—that they were reasonable beyond dispute. We disagree. On this record, a reasonable jury could ﬁnd that either or both of Experian’s reinvestigations were unreasonable. This is not to say that Experian cannot pre- vail—only that reasonable juries might diﬀer. While Experian might not be liable for failing to notice the missing TPP in the ﬁrst place, “[a] credit reporting agency that has been notiﬁed of potentially inaccurate information in a consumer’s credit report is in a very diﬀerent position than one who has no such notice.” Henson, 29 F.3d at 286. Since rea- sonableness is a question of costs and beneﬁts, “[w]hen a credit reporting agency receives such notice, it can target its resources in a more eﬃcient manner and conduct a more thor- ough investigation.” Id. at 286−87. Thus, reasonable proce- dures under § 1681e(b) are not proof of a reasonable reinves- tigation under § 1681i(b). See id.; Cushman v. Trans Union Corp., 115 F.3d 220, 225 (3d Cir. 1997) (recognizing that, be- cause § 1681i(a)’s reinvestigation requirement mandates a 22 No. 21-2632 more thorough investigation than § 1681e(b), a CRA’s liability under the two sections may diverge depending on the facts). “Although the parameters of a reasonable investigation will often depend on the circumstances of a particular dispute, it is clear that a reasonable reinvestigation must mean more than simply including public documents in a consumer report or making only a cursory investigation into the reliability of information that is reported to potential creditors.” Cortez v. Trans Union LLC, 617 F.3d 688, 713 (3d Cir. 2010) (citing Cush- man, 115 F.3d at 225). The Eleventh Circuit reached a similar conclusion in Col- lins v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc., 775 F.3d 1330 (11th Cir. 2015). There, Experian used the Automated Consumer Dispute Veriﬁcation process to verify a furnisher’s infor- mation, but it conducted no independent investigation of the consumer’s dispute. Id. at 1331−33. The Eleventh Circuit af- ﬁrmed that “an issue of material fact remained as to whether Experian’s investigation was reasonable when it disregarded the … information [the consumer] provided and instead re- lied solely on [the furnisher] to verify the debt.” Id. at 1333. The Eleventh Circuit reaﬃrmed Collins in Losch v. Nation- star Mortgage, LLC, 995 F.3d 937 (11th Cir. 2021), which in- volved a mortgage debt that at ﬁrst survived but was eventu- ally extinguished by the consumer’s bankruptcy. Id. at 940−41. Experian reported the debt long after the consumer earned the fresh start that bankruptcy promises. After the consumer alerted Experian to his fresh start, Experian resorted to the ACDV process. Id. at 941. The once-creditor (incorrectly) con- ﬁrmed that the debt was still owed, and Experian trusted it. Id. The Eleventh Circuit vacated summary judgment in Ex- perian’s favor on the plaintiﬀ’s § 1681i(a) claim. Id. at 940. No. 21-2632 23 Experian was not entitled to summary judgment as to the rea- sonableness of its investigation because “[i]t did nothing, alt- hough it easily could have done something with the infor- mation that [the consumer] provided.” Id. at 946. So too here. There is a facial mismatch between the letter Ocwen sent Chaitoﬀ and the ACDV response it sent to Ex- perian. Ocwen’s letter to Chaitoﬀ stated that his trial pay- ments were made on time and were due on the ﬁrst of May, June, and July 2017; Ocwen’s ACDV response stated that Chaitoﬀ was six-months delinquent in each of those months. Once Experian had a copy of Chaitoﬀ’s TPP documents, it could have cross-referenced them with Ocwen’s ACDV re- sponse. Ocwen’s reporting was technically accurate, but Ex- perian could not have known that at the time—it didn’t have the portions of the TPP explaining that trial payments would not be credited to the months in which they were made. Had Experian asked Ocwen to explain the mismatch, Ocwen might have reported the TPP’s existence. A reasonable jury could conclude that Experian should have taken additional steps to investigate the mismatch between Ocwen’s ACDV re- sponse and its letter to Chaitoﬀ. Experian defends its resort to the ACDV system alone by noting that Chaitoﬀ never pre- sented proof of payment during the disputed months. That is incorrect: Chaitoﬀ attached Ocwen’s letter conﬁrming that timely payments were made in May, June, and July 2017. Again, Experian could not know at the time—since it lacked the TPP’s full terms—that those payments would not be cred- ited in the months they were made. But Chaitoﬀ did present evidence that he made timely payments in those months. A reasonable jury could ﬁnd that Experian could have taken an- other cost-eﬀective step that might have resolved Chaitoﬀ’s dispute. 24 No. 21-2632 Experian’s second reinvestigation oﬀers Chaitoﬀ an even stronger case. In response to Chaitoﬀ’s renewed complaint, Experian repeated the same steps it took in response to his ﬁrst dispute. It could not reasonably expect a diﬀerent out- come. To be clear, a CRA’s reinvestigation does not have to ﬁx the mistake to preclude liability—it need only be reasona- ble. Still, a jury could ﬁnd that repeating the same ineﬀective steps was not a reasonable response to Chaitoﬀ’s second let- ter. A jury could not ﬁnd, however, that Experian willfully failed to comply with § 1681i(a) with respect to its reinvesti- gation of Chaitoﬀ’s ﬁrst dispute. Recall, the FCRA provides diﬀerent remedies for negligent and willful violations by CRAs. 15 U.S.C. § 1681o (negligent); Id. § 1681n (willful). Chaitoﬀ brought his claims under both theories. A willful vi- olation is one committed in “reckless disregard of [its] statu- tory duty.” Safeco Ins. Co. of Am. v. Burr, 551 U.S. 47, 57 (2007). Reckless conduct is that which creates a risk substantially greater than that necessary to render the conduct negligent. Id. at 69 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 500); see also Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837–38 (1994) (discussing “excessive,” “signiﬁcant,” “substantial,” and “intolerable” risks). “But probability isn’t everything.” Boim v. Holy Land Found. for Relief & Dev., 549 F.3d 685, 695 (7th Cir. 2008). Reck- lessness also looks to the social utility (or lack thereof) of the conduct at issue. Id. On this record, a jury could not ﬁnd that Experian will- fully failed to undertake a reasonable reinvestigation of Chaitoﬀ’s ﬁrst dispute. Chaitoﬀ’s claim, at its core, is that Ex- perian failed to detect an omission. None of the facts Chaitoﬀ oﬀers supports a ﬁnding that Experian was indiﬀerent to the No. 21-2632 25 harms Chaitoﬀ alleges. And it is uncontested that Experian followed its normal procedures by transmitting Chaitoﬀ’s dis- pute to Ocwen; it did not wholly ignore the dispute. Nor is the discrepancy between Ocwen’s response and the docu- ments Chaitoﬀ provided with his dispute letter so obvious that Experian’s failure to pick up on it constitutes a gross de- viation from what might be reasonable. Experian’s response to Chaitoﬀ’s ﬁrst letter may have been negligent, but it was not reckless. The record leaves no dispute that Experian was entitled to summary judgment as to Chaitoﬀ’s willfulness claim arising from his ﬁrst dispute letter. * We establish no hard and fast rules about what is or isn’t a reasonable reinvestigation. Experian’s reinvestigations might have been reasonable; they might not have been, too. Likewise, the first might have been reasonable but the second not. The reasonableness of a CRA’s reinvestigation is a ques- tion for the jury unless reasonableness is beyond dispute. That isn’t the case here, so we reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Experian as to Chaitoff’s § 1681i(a) claims. The district court did not address willfulness. As ex- plained above, Experian is entitled to summary judgment as to willfulness with respect to Chaitoff’s first dispute letter. On remand, the district court is free to consider anew the ques- tion of willfulness as to the second dispute letter. IV A consumer may continue to believe that his credit report contains a mistake even after a CRA undertakes a reasonable reinvestigation of the purported mistake. To break that log- jam, Congress enacted a provision that allows consumers to add a “statement of dispute” to their credit reports— 26 No. 21-2632 § 1681i(b). Those statements do not alter, but add to, the in- formation provided by furnishers and transmitted to poten- tial creditors. And because those statements can inform a con- sumer’s creditworthiness, they help achieve the “maximum possible accuracy” at the core of a CRA’s obligations. See Car- valho v. Equifax Info. Servs., LLC, 629 F.3d 876, 892 (9th Cir. 2010). If the reinvestigation [described in § 1681i(a)] does not resolve the dispute, the consumer may file a brief statement setting forth the nature of the dispute. The consumer reporting agency may limit such statements to not more than one hundred words if it provides the consumer with assistance in writing a clear summary of the dis- pute. Section 1681i(c) operationalizes the preceding subsection by requiring CRAs to “clearly note” nonfrivolous relevant dis- putes in later reports “[w]henever a statement of a dispute is ﬁled.” CRAs must note that the information “is disputed by the consumer and provide either the consumer’s statement or a clear and accurate codiﬁcation or summary thereof.” Id. Fail- ure to comply with § 1681i(c) is an independent basis for lia- bility. Chaitoﬀ alleges that Experian ignored his requests that such a statement be added to his credit report to reﬂect his understanding of the TPP, in violation of § 1681i(c). Ex- perian’s defense—one the district court credited seemingly without explanation—is that Chaitoﬀ never ﬁled a statement of dispute in the ﬁrst place. Again, we disagree. Congress pre- scribed no magic words a consumer must incant to request the inclusion of a dispute statement. No. 21-2632 27 The rights-creating language of § 1681i(b) is straightfor- ward: “If the reinvestigation does not resolve the dispute, the consumer may ﬁle a brief statement setting forth the nature of the dispute.” Chaitoﬀ sent two letters to Experian explaining his discontent with its reporting. The ﬁrst letter can’t trigger § 1681i(b) because that is what triggered Experian’s initial re- investigation, and the statute only requires a statement of dis- pute to be added if the reinvestigation “does not resolve the dispute.” Experian could not know whether Chaitoﬀ believed his dispute had been resolved until it heard back from him. But it did, and Chaitoﬀ’s second letter satisﬁes § 1681i(b)’s simple formulation. That was enough to trigger Experian’s obligations to note the dispute under § 1681i(c). Experian leans on the use of the word “ﬁled” in § 1681i(c) to suggest Chaitoﬀ had to do more. But what counts as “more” Experian does not, or cannot, say. That alone is tell- ing. Experian concedes that § 1681i(b) requires no magic words. Still, it insists that the statute requires some formal no- tice that the consumer wishes for his dispute to be reﬂected in his report. We cannot square that assertion with its earlier concession. Experian makes no model language or dedicated form available to consumers. Neither Congress nor the Con- sumer Financial Protection Bureau has undertaken such an ef- fort. Nor is there a centralized system for ﬁling and distrib- uting consumer disputes. None of this is surprising given the remedial nature of the FCRA. See Cortez, 617 F.3d at 715 n.33 (3d Cir. 2010) (“Congress did not require that consumers sub- mit disputes on speciﬁc forms, and any such technical re- quirement seems inconsistent with the remedial focus of the FCRA.”). All of this undermines Experian’s claim that “ﬁled” can absolve it of liability under § 1681i(c) in this case. 28 No. 21-2632 To the extent Experian asks us to parse the word “ﬁled,” we think it draws its meaning from the FCRA’s context and purpose. Throughout the credit reporting industry, consum- ers’ data are reported in “ﬁles.” See, e.g., 15 U.S.C. § 1681a(g) (deﬁning “ﬁle” as “all of the information on that consumer recorded and retained by a consumer reporting agency re- gardless of how the information is stored”); § 1681i(a)(1)(A) (describing “any item of information contained in a con- sumer’s ﬁle” (emphasis added)). At the time of enactment, that meant a physical ﬁle—Section 1681i(c) predates the internet and most computerized data systems. Pub. L. 91-508 § 601, 84 Stat. 1114, 1132 (1970). Even today, we refer to computer “ﬁles” stored in “folders.” The simplest reading of “ﬁled” happens to be the best: Like every other piece of relevant in- formation provided to it, the credit reporting agency places the consumer’s statement of dispute in her ﬁle at the CRA, so all a consumer needs to do is transmit that dispute to the CRA in a reasonable fashion. Comparing § 1681i(c) to other provi- sions reinforces that understanding. Other documents a con- sumer submits, like a “notice of dispute,” see § 1681i(a), trig- ger some action on the CRA’s part, but they are not neces- sarily included in the consumer’s ﬁle for disclosure to pro- spective furnishers. The statement of dispute, by contrast, re- quires the CRA to do nothing other than include it in subse- quent reporting. They may elect to shorten the statement or seek clariﬁcation, but by the FCRA’s plain text, Experian would have fulﬁlled its statutory obligations under § 1681i(c) if it had copied Chaitoﬀ’s letter verbatim and included it in later reports. Read alongside the FCRA’s other verbs and with an eye towards the era of the FCRA’s enactment, “ﬁled” oﬀers Experian neither the support nor illumination it hopes for. No. 21-2632 29 Experian next argues that it provided Chaitoﬀ with all the information he needed to clarify that he was ﬁling a statement of dispute. It points to § 1681i(b)’s second sentence: “The con- sumer reporting agency may limit such statements to not more than one hundred words if it provides the consumer with assistance in writing a clear summary of the dispute.” But what a CRA may do in response to a statement of dispute tells us nothing about what constitutes such a statement in the ﬁrst place. Experian says that its responses to Chaitoﬀ’s letters told him that he could ﬁle a statement of dispute if he wished. Again, the FCRA contains no magic words requirement; Con- gress placed the burden on CRAs to recognize a statement of dispute and act accordingly. Chaitoﬀ’s letters provided more than enough for Experian to fulﬁl its obligations. As best we can tell, it simply chose not to. Finally, Experian suggests that Chaitoﬀ had to propose the text of his own statement of dis- pute—its proposed language is in its brief. This understand- ing turns the language of § 1681i(b) on its head. After receiving Chaitoﬀ’s disputes, Experian had two op- tions: it could include “either the consumer’s statement or a clear and accurate codiﬁcation or summary thereof.” § 1681i(c) (emphases added). The onus was on Experian to seek or author a clariﬁed version of Chaitoﬀ’s dispute if it be- lieved his version was ambiguous or verbose. V In sum, we hold that the omission of the TPP from Chaitoﬀ’s credit report presents a factual question, not a legal one. We also hold that it is disputable whether Experian’s re- liance on an ACDV response that conﬂicted with other docu- ments in its possession amounted to a reasonable reinvestiga- tion. Finally, we hold that the FCRA’s statement-of-dispute 30 No. 21-2632 provision does not require consumers to use any magic words or speciﬁc form to request that such a statement be added to her report. Rather, the burden rests with the CRA. It can either accept a consumer’s statement of dispute as-is and add it to her ﬁle, or it can initiate a collaborative process for synthesiz- ing that statement into an accurate and complete synopsis of the consumer’s concern. We aﬃrm the district court’s grant of summary judgment on Chaitoﬀ’s § 1681e(b) claim. But on the record before us, there was a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether Ex- perian’s reinvestigations were reasonable. We therefore re- verse the district court’s grant of summary judgment on the § 1681i(a) and § 1681i(c) claims. The district court can struc- ture the proceedings on remand as it sees ﬁt. AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED

Jeffrey Chaitoff v. Experian Information Solutions

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