In Paterno v. Ford Motor Credit Co. LLC, No. CV-22-01008-PHX-SMB, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 100723, at *1 (D. Ariz. June 8, 2023), Judge Brnovich granted summary judgment to an automobile finance lender in a “payment status” FCRA case.
Plaintiff argues that the credit report inaccurately reports that Plaintiff’s Ford account is currently 30 days past due when the account has been paid off in full. On a plain reading of the information, the Court disagrees. The report, prior to correction, reflected that the last payment was made on December 14, 2016 and closed the same day. It reflects a zero balance, no scheduled monthly payment, and an amount past due of “none”. With all of that information, a payment rating of 1: 30-59 days past due is clearly historical information. However, the Court will discuss some of the case law on this issue. . . .Other courts have found that the pay status entry, when considered along with all the information in the report, could not reasonably lead someone to believe that the account was currently past due. See, e.g., Gross v. Priv. Nat’l Mortg. Acceptance Co., LLC, 512 F. Supp. 3d 423, 427 (E.D. N.Y. 2021); Hernandez v. Trans Union LLC, No. 3:19cv1987-RV/EMT, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 249358, 2020 WL 8368221, at *4 (N.D. Fla. Dec. 10, 2020); and Cassity v. Transunion LLC, No. 6:20-cv-02139-MK, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174280, 2021 WL 4166340, at *4 (D. Or. July 26, 2021), report and recommendation adopted, No. 6:20-CV-02139-MK, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 173256, 2021 WL 4166323 (D. Or. Sept. 13, 2021). Plaintiff argues that those cases are all distinguishable because the debt was transferred to another lender but in this case Plaintiff had paid his account in full. Plaintiff points to Soler v. Trans Union, LLC, No. CV 20-8459 DSF (PLAx), 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 232987, 2020 WL 7237256, at *3 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 1, 2020). In that case, the court held that the “pay status” reporting of 120 days past due date was misleading when [*10] the account had been paid in full. 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 232987, [WL] at *3. However, as other courts have noted, the court did not analyze the credit report as a whole, but only the line in isolation. Plaintiff also cites to Macik v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. CV G-14-044, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185257, 2015 WL 12999728, at *3 (S.D. Tex. May 28, 2015), report and recommendation adopted sub nom. Macik v. Trans Union, LLC, No. 3:14-CV-0044, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185273, 2015 WL 12999727 (S.D. Tex. July 31, 2015). In that case, Macik failed to make her mortgage payment for 3 months before she sold the home and paid off the mortgage in its entirety. Four years later, she was denied a new mortgage loan because of the way Chase reported the status of her previous loan. The Court found that the “Account Status” code reflected that Macik was currently 90 days past due when her credit report was run. 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185257, [WL] at *4. The Court therefore found that the report was misleading. Id. However, Macik is not binding on this Court and is not persuasive. The Court agrees with the Court in Sanchez that found: “Yet this reading of the definition, much like Plaintiff’s reading, ignores the second half of the sentence, “as of the Date of Account Information.” As explained above, the Date of Account Information in such situations is the date the account was paid. Thus, it cannot reflect the account’s current status.” Sanchez, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 217698, 2022 WL 17404796, at *7. Because the Court is more persuaded by cases that analyze credit reports as a whole, [*11] Defendant’s motion will be granted. The Court is also unpersuaded that the result should be different if an account is closed because it was transferred or closed because it was paid off.