In Chandler v. Peoples Bank & Tr. Co., No. 18-5361, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 12100, at *13-14 (6th Cir. Apr. 24, 2019), an FCRA plaintiff complained that a creditor and it’s assignee breached a bankruptcy re-affirmation agreement, resulting in inaccurate reporting. Once the 6th Circuit found that there was no breach, the Court of Appeals found that no FCRA claim could lie.
Chandler is a consumer who disputed her credit information, and Peoples Bank is a furnisher of credit information to CRAs. Peoples Bank thus had a duty, when notified of a dispute by a CRA in March 2016, to conduct a reasonable investigation of Chandler’s disputed information, notify CRAs of the result of the investigation, and remedy any inaccuracies or gaps in Chandler’s information. See Boggio at 616-18. As discussed above, because Peoples Bank did not breach the Agreement and correctly applied the August 8 payment to Chandler’s past-due July 7 payment, Chandler was over 30 days late when she made her past-due August 7 payment on October 3. She was again over 30 days late when she made her past-due September 7 payment on October 31, and so on, in what the district court aptly called a “domino effect.” Though there were problematic consequences for Chandler, Peoples Bank accurately reported Chandler’s late payments. We have held “that a threshold showing of inaccuracy of incompleteness is necessary in order to succeed on a claim under § 1681s-2(b).” Pittman v. Experian Info. Sols., Inc., 901 F.3d 619, 629 (6th Cir. 2018). Because Chandler cannot show any inaccuracy or incompleteness, her claims under § 1681s-2(b) fail. Under the terms of this Agreement and the applicable facts, Peoples Bank did not violate the FCRA and Chandler’s two FCRA claims were properly dismissed.