In King v. Bank of America, N.A., 2012 WL 4685993 (N.D.Cal. 2012), Judge Spero found a bankrupt Plaintiff’s FCRA claims to be outside of Walls v. Wells Fargo. The facts were as follows:
On July 21, 2010, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California granted Plaintiff a discharge of all dischargeable debts pur-suant to 11 U.S.C. § 727. Complaint at ¶ 14. This included a $50,877.00 debt owed to Defendant. Id. at ¶ 13. Defendant was noticed by electronic transmission of Plaintiff’s discharge on July 23, 2010. Id. at ¶ 14. Subsequently, Defendant inaccurately reported that Plaintiff was delinquent in her payments of the discharged debt. Id. at ¶ 15. The Complaint alleges that ‘[o]n or about May 5, 2011 Plaintiff sent Experian [Plaintiff’s credit reporting agency] written notice disputing [Defendant’s] improper reporting of de-linquencies in payment …. Pursuant to Section 1681i(a)(2) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Experian provided notice to [Defendant] of Plaintiff’s dispute. After receiving notice of Plaintiff’s allega-tions, [Defendant] verified that it received notice of Plaintiff’s [sic] from Experian while also continuing to inaccurately report the delinquencies in payment.’ Id. at ¶ 10. On June 6, 2011, Plaintiff received a copy of her Experian credit report, showing that De-fendant continued to report Plaintiff’s delinquencies in payment and that Defendant failed to report Plaintiff’s account as disputed. Id. at ¶ 16. To date, Defendant refuses to correct Plaintiff’s credit report. Id. at ¶ 17.
The Court rejected the Defendants’ claim that Walls v. Wells Fargo deemed the matter the subject of the bankruptcy court.
Defendant asserts that although Walls dealt with an FDCPA claim, the same reasoning can be extended to Plaintiff’s FCRA, CCRAA, and UCL claims. This Court in Hanks recently rejected this argument: [Whether Walls applied to FCRA claims] was ad-dressed in Henry v. Saxon Mortg., Inc., 2011 WL 5331679, *3–4 (D.Ariz. Nov. 7, 2011). There, the plaintiffs claimed that the defendant failed to con-duct a reasonable investigation pursuant to the plaintiffs’ disputes with the major credit reporting agencies. Applying Walls, the court dismissed plaintiffs’ claims under the FDCPA as “bankrupt-cy-laden determinations” precluded by the Bank-ruptcy Code. The court then turned to the plaintiffs’ claims under the FCRA: Although the Ninth Circuit has not addressed whether Walls applies to FCRA claims, this issue has been addressed in the District of Oregon. See Wakefield v. Calvary Portfolio Servs., No. 06–CV–1066–BR, 2006 WL 3169517, at *2 (D.Or. Nov. 1, 2006). In Wakefield, the court held that the Bankruptcy Code does not preclude an FCRA claim. Id. The court cited two bankruptcy court decisions in support of its conclusion. See In re Miller, No. 01–02004, 2003 WL 25273851, at *2 (Bankr.D.Idaho Aug. 15, 2003) (holding that “there appears to be no conflict in remedies be-tween the FCRA and the [Bankruptcy] Code”); In re Pots, 336 B.R. 731, 733 (Bankr.E.D.Va.2005) (holding that the FCRA and the Bankruptcy Code “coexist”). Therefore, although the Defendant correctly asserts that the above cases are not binding authority, they are persuasive nonetheless and present conclusions that logically follow the purpose of the FCRA. For example, the court in In re Pots held that there are two reasons why the Bankruptcy Code and the FCRA can co-exist. First, while the FCRA and the discharge stay are similar, they are not identical. They differ in their objectives. The FCRA seeks to minimize credit reporting errors and to cure those that are made in a prompt and efficient manner. Actions under it generally involve mistakes. The discharge stay is directed to enforcing the bankruptcy discharge. Actions under it generally involve intentional acts. The elements that must be proved under each statute may overlap, but they are not identical. The remedies available, while similar, may differ. Second, there is no express provision in either the Fair Credit Reporting Act or the Bankruptcy Code that either supercedes the other. Id. These reasons are sufficient to support a finding that the Bankruptcy Code does not preclude an FCRA claim. 2011 WL 5331679, at *3–4. The Court agrees with that reasoning and adopts it here.