- Court: United States Supreme Court
- Area(s) of Law: Civil Procedure
- Date Filed: June 25, 2021
- Case #: 20-297
- Judge(s)/Court Below: KAVANAUGH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, with whom BREYER, J., SOTOMAYOR, J., and KAGAN, J., joined. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion joined by BREYER, J., and SOTOMAYOR, J.
- Full Text Opinion
When Respondent, Sergio Ramirez, attempted to purchase a car and had his credit check, he learned that he was on a “terrorist list.” The list was created and updated by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which names people with whom businesses are prohibited from doing business. Respondent was unable to purchase the car in his name because of his presence on the OFAC list. TransUnion, Petitioner here, later removed the alert from Ramirez’s credit report.
Respondent claimed that Petitioner violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and filed a class action suit. Petitioner did not, however, provide credit information to potential creditors during the six-month class period. Nonetheless, the jury awarded the class more than $60 million dollars in total damages. On appeal to the Ninth Circuit, statutory damages were upheld against Petitioner and punitive damages were reduced.
Because a majority of the class did not suffer an injury comparable to Respondent’s, Petitioner appealed to the Supreme Court to determine whether Article III of the Constitution or Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 allows a class action seeking damages. The Court held that a plaintiff must be concretely harmed by a defendant’s illegal act to pursue damages against a private defendant in federal court.
Thus, here, because credit reports were not issued for the majority of plaintiffs, they were not concretely harmed by Petitioner’s violation of the FCRA. Accordingly, the majority of class members lacked standing.
Reversed and remanded.