District Court (Ill.) Allows FCRA Claim Challenging Post-Bankruptcy Report of Mortgage Account to Proceed Past the Pleadings

In Asufrin v. Roundpoint Mortgage Servicing Corporation, 2016 WL 1056669, at *1 (N.D.Ill., 2016), Judge Aspen allowed a bankruptcy FCRA claim to proceed past the pleadings stage.  In Asufrin, the Plaintiff alleged that RoundPoint mismanaged the credit reporting of her mortgage loan after she obtained a bankruptcy discharge.  Despite Plaintiff’s order of discharge, her Experian credit report revealed that RoundPoint was reporting the subject loan in default with a high balance.   Plaintiff requested that her credit file be updated to reflect the zero balance and discharged status of all accounts discharged in her Chapter 13 bankruptcy.   The District Court found that the Complaint properly pleaded a claim of inaccuracy.

Defendant contends that even if Plaintiff sufficiently alleged that the CRAs notified Defendant of Plaintiff’s dispute, Plaintiff’s claim fails because Roundpoint’s credit reporting was accurate and reported a $0 account balance. (Mot. at 7.) Plaintiff’s credit report was modified to show an account balance of $0,3 however, Plaintiff sufficiently alleges other inaccuracies in Defendant’s reporting to survive a motion to dismiss. As to her Experian credit report, Plaintiff alleges that RoundPoint continued to inaccurately report that the subject debt had an account balance and a scheduled payment amount for March 2015 and April 2015, after the subject debt was discharged. (Compl. ¶ 37.) Similarly, Plaintiff asserts that Defendant inaccurately reported to Equifax a scheduled payment of $2,107.00. (Id. ¶ 46.) Additionally, Plaintiff asserts that after reporting the dispute to the CRAs, and after the CRAs notified Defendant of the dispute, Defendant’s trade lines were still inaccurate. (Id. ¶ 60.) These assertions support the reasonable inference that Defendant failed to investigate, reinvestigate or properly report disputed information. See Dornhecker, 99 F. Supp. 2d at 928 (“Contrary to [defendant’s] assertion, [plaintiff] does specifically allege that after notifying [the CRA] that he disputed the credit information, he nevertheless continued to receive letters from the collection agency attempting to collect the [subject] debt. Drawing all reasonable inferences [in plaintiff’s] favor, this paragraph may be read as establishing that the inaccurate information was never rectified, and is therefore sufficient to allege that [defendant] failed to properly investigate the dispute.”)