Wadley v. Experian Information Solutions, Inc. ( 2007 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 05-2054
SCOTT CHRISTIAN WADLEY,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
EXPERIAN INFORMATION SOLUTIONS, INCORPORATED,
Defendant - Appellee,
and
FORD MOTOR CREDIT COMPANY; CHOICEPOINT
SERVICES, INCORPORATED; EQUIFAX INFORMATION
SERVICES, LLC,
Defendants.
-------------------------
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CONSUMER ADVOCATES,
Amicus Supporting Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Gerald Bruce Lee, District
Judge. (CA-05-467-1)
Argued: October 24, 2006 Decided: July 17, 2007
Before WIDENER, KING, and SHEDD, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Leonard Anthony Bennett, Newport News, Virginia, for
Appellant. Thomas Dean Domonoske, LAW OFFICE OF DALE W. PITTMAN,
Harrisonburg, Virginia, for Amicus Supporting Appellant. Meir
Feder, JONES DAY, New York, New York, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Carl
L. Crews, Arlington, Virginia, for Appellant. Richard J. Rubin,
Santa Fe, New Mexico; Joanne S. Faulkner, New Haven, Connecticut,
for Amicus Supporting Appellant.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
2
PER CURIAM:
Scott Christian Wadley appeals the summary judgment entered in
favor of Experian Information Solutions, Inc. on his claims under
the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681 et seq.
For the reasons that follow, we vacate the summary judgment and
remand for further proceedings.
I
Summary judgment is appropriate “if the pleadings,
depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file,
together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine
issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled
to a judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). The
relevant inquiry in a summary judgment analysis is “whether the
evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission
to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail
as a matter of law.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S.
242, 251-52 (1986). “We review the district court’s order granting
summary judgment de novo, viewing the facts in the light most
favorable to, and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of,
the nonmoving party.” Garofolo v. Donald B. Heslep Assocs., Inc.,
405 F.3d 194, 198 (4th Cir. 2005).
The evidence in the record tends to establish that in May 2003
Wadley purchased a car from Jerry’s Ford in Alexandria, Virginia.
3
Ford Motor Credit Corporation (“FMCC”) financed the purchase.
Shortly thereafter, Wadley returned the car to Jerry’s Ford,
contending that it had several problems. Dissatisfied with the
response from Jerry’s Ford, Wadley removed his personal belongings
and the tags from the car and left it at the dealership.
Thereafter, Wadley quit repaying the FMCC loan. When he
informed FMCC that he should not have to repay the loan, FMCC told
him that his failure to do so would adversely affect his credit.
Because Wadley had abandoned the car at Jerry’s Ford, FMCC treated
it as being voluntarily surrendered and sold it at a public
auction. After the proceeds were applied to the balance of the
loan, a total of $9,467.46 remained due and owing from Wadley to
FMCC. Wadley failed to repay the balance, and FMCC filed a lawsuit
seeking repayment in Virginia state court. FMCC eventually took a
voluntary nonsuit, but it continued to maintain that Wadley owed
the loan balance.
Experian is a consumer reporting agency that supplies consumer
information pursuant to the FCRA. Because of Wadley’s failure to
repay the loan, FMCC reported the deficiency balance to Experian
and other consumer reporting agencies that supply consumer credit
information pursuant to the FCRA. In turn, Experian reported
Wadley’s FMCC debt on his credit report.
Wadley contacted Experian several times about the FMCC
account. In June 2003, Wadley wrote Experian about “a negative
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customer service experience” he had with FMCC. J.A. 24. Wadley
stated that FMCC told him his actions would affect his credit, but
he contended that “[a]s a dissatisfied customer [he] should not be
penalized in this way simply because [he] returned a defective
product within the parameters of the 30-day period.” J.A. 24.
Wadley also contacted Experian in May 2004 to dispute the FMCC
debt. Experian apparently investigated the loan with FMCC, and
FMCC confirmed the delinquency. By letter dated June 2, 2004,
Experian informed Wadley that the investigation confirmed the
accuracy of the loan and that the loan would remain on his
Experian credit file, but that he could add a statement disputing
the accuracy or completeness of the information to his Experian
report.
In July 2004, Wadley’s attorney (Carl Crews) wrote to Experian
requesting an investigation of the FMCC account. Crews enclosed a
copy of FMCC’s nonsuit, but he did not argue that the credit report
was inaccurate because Wadley disputed the debt. Rather, Crews
argued that the fact of the nonsuit supported Wadley’s contention
“that a debt was never owed” and that the account could not have
been delinquent because it never should have arisen. J.A. 27.
Experian responded to Crews by stating that it had conducted an
investigation regarding the FMCC account and that it could not
assist Wadley in resolving his dispute with FMCC. Experian again
noted that Wadley could add a consumer statement specifying the
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nature of his dispute with FMCC to his credit report. Experian
also wrote to Wadley, explaining that the dispute had been
previously investigated and informing him that he could add the
consumer statement to his report.
II
In his amended complaint, Wadley alleged that the information
reported by Experian relating to his FMCC account was inaccurate
and that Experian violated the FCRA by willfully and negligently
failing to: (1) “conduct a proper and reasonable reinvestigation
concerning the inaccurate information after receiving notice of the
dispute from [sic];” (2) “provide prompt notice of the inaccurate
information and of plaintiff’s dispute to the furnishing entities,
in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a);” (3) “provide all relevant
information provided by the Plaintiff regarding the dispute of the
inaccurate information to the furnishing entities, in violation of
15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a);” (4) “review and consider all relevant
information submitted by the Plaintiff concerning the dispute of
the inaccurate information, in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(4);”
(5) “delete the inaccurate information from plaintiff’s credit file
after reinvestigation, in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a);” and
(6) “employ and follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum
possible accuracy of plaintiffs [sic] credit report, information
and credit file, in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1681e.” J.A. 14-15.
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In granting summary judgment, the district court noted that
this case concerns Wadley’s allegations that Experian violated the
FCRA “by reporting inaccurate information” on Wadley’s credit
report, and it framed the issue as being “whether a genuine issue
of fact remains regarding whether Experian reported inaccurate
information on [Wadley’s] credit report when [he] concedes that he
entered into a loan with FMCC, failed to pay the loan, and the loan
was reported with a derogatory status.” J.A. 45. Without
elaborating specifically on the various alleged FCRA violations
noted above, the district court concluded that Experian was
entitled to summary judgment because Wadley “failed to establish
that the consumer report contains inaccurate information, which is
an essential element of a FCRA claim.” J.A. 49. The district
court primarily cited § 1681e(b) for the proposition that
inaccurate information is an essential element of a FCRA claim.1
The district court also held that summary judgment was warranted
because Wadley “is attempting to collaterally attack the basis of
accurately reported information. The FCRA does not provide a cause
of action to collaterally attack an accurate credit report.” J.A.
49.
1
The district court also cited Dalton v. Capital Assoc.
Indus., Inc., 257 F.3d 409, 415 (4th Cir. 2001) (citation and
internal punctuation omitted), in which we stated that “[t]o make
out a violation under § 1681e(b), a consumer must present evidence
tending to show that a credit reporting agency prepared a report
containing inaccurate information.”
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Wadley raised two issues in his appellate briefs. First, he
contended that the district court erred in dismissing his FCRA
claim to the extent that it is brought under § 1681e(b) because a
genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether the FMCC
information reported by Experian was accurate. Second, he
contended that, in any event, the district court erred in
dismissing his § 1681i failure-to-reinvestigate claim because it
did not specifically address that claim and because Experian had a
duty to reinvestigate the credit report after notice of the non-
suit regardless of whether the FMCC report was accurate. During
oral argument, Wadley abandoned his § 1681e(b) claim, which was
premised on the alleged inaccuracy of the FMCC report, but he
continued to maintain for purposes of his § 1681i claim that the
FMCC report was in fact inaccurate.
Thus, we are now presented with only the issue of whether the
district court properly entered summary judgment against Wadley on
his § 1681i claim. As Wadley correctly observes, the district
court did not address the § 1681i claim in its summary judgment
order. In this circumstance, we find it appropriate to remand the
case to the district court for further consideration of the summary
judgment motion as it pertains to the § 1681i reinvestigation
claim. See French v. Assurance Co. of America, 448 F.3d 693, 707
(4th Cir. 2006) (“we adhere to the general rule that a federal
appellate court does not consider an issue not passed upon below”);
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Whittle v. Timesavers, Inc., 749 F.2d 1103, 1106 (4th Cir. 1984)
(“because the district court’s opinion did not adequately discuss
this issue, we reverse the decision of the district court and
remand the case for further proceedings”).2 We express no opinion
on the merits of this claim.
III
Based on the foregoing, we vacate the summary judgment and
remand this case for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
VACATED AND REMANDED
2
On remand, the district court may, as it deems necessary,
permit the parties to engage in further discovery and submit
additional evidence concerning the nature of the reinvestigation
conducted by Experian.
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