In Noori v. Bank of America, here, Judge Andre Birotte granted summary judgment to a bank in an FCRA case. Judge Birotte found that the Plaintiff produced no evidence that the CRAs ever forwarded a dispute to the furnisher and, accordingly, no FCRA claim could lie. “Plaintiff has produced no evidence that BofA received, from any CRA, a notice of dispute through the ACDV system. Because a furnisher’s duties under § 1681s-2(b) are not triggered absent indirect notice from a CRA through the ACDV system, Plaintiff’s claim under § 1681s-2(b) fails.”
On Plaintiff’s CCRAA claim, the Court held that the Bank had procedures in place to protect against a violation because its procedures required use of the METRO-2 codes. “However, the CCRA includes a safe harbor provision: that a “person who furnishes information to a consumer credit reporting agency is liable for failure to comply with this section, unless the furnisher establishes by a preponderance of the evidence that, at the time of the failure to comply with this section, the furnisher maintained reasonable procedures to comply with those provisions.” Cal. Civ. Code § 785.25(g). Here, it is undisputed that BofA follows the Metro 2 format to furnish information, and that the Metro 2 format is the industry standard for furnishers to transmit data to the CRAs. BofA’s expert also testified that a furnisher who uses Metro 2 uses reasonable procedures to comply with the CCRA. Notably, Plaintiffs’ expert also testified that BofA used Metro 2 and that it is the industry standard. See Garfinkle Decl. ¶12, Exh. E 127:9-23. Plaintiff presented no evidence that BofA used some other reporting format, or that the Metro 2 procedures are unreasonable in any way. Plaintiff merely invokes generic language from Guimond v. Trans Union Credit Info. Co., 45 F.3d 1329, 1333 (9th Cir. 1995) that “[t]he reasonableness of the procedures and whether the agency followed them will be jury questions in the overwhelming majority of cases,” without explaining how BofA’s reporting procedures were unreasonable. Plaintiff in effect asks the court to allow her to present BofA’s use of Metro 2 to a jury, and let them assess its reasonableness in a vacuum. But the only evidence in the record is one-sided in BofA’s favor. No reasonable jury assessing this one-sided evidence could find for Plaintiff. Absent any evidence suggesting that Metro 2 is unreasonable, a jury simply has no rational basis to find that it is unreasonable, and there is no triable issue of fact.
Matt Garfinkle of Severson’s Irvine office handled this matter, and can be reached at mag@severson.com.