8th Circuit holds employee failed to plead injuries in FCRA suit against employer, law firm, and credit reporting agency

Courts FCRA Eighth Circuit Appellate Spokeo Credit Reporting Agency Standing

On September 6, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit held that an employee lacked standing to bring claims under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) because she failed to sufficiently plead she suffered injuries. An employee brought a lawsuit against her former employer, a law firm, and a credit reporting agency (defendants) alleging various violations of the FCRA after the employee’s credit report that was obtained as part of the hiring process background check was provided to the employee in response to her records request in a wrongful termination lawsuit she had filed. The district court dismissed the claims against the employer and the law firm and granted judgment on the pleadings for the credit reporting agency. Upon appeal, the 8th Circuit, citing the Supreme Court’s 2016 ruling in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (covered by a Buckley Sandler Special Alert), concluded the former employee lacked Article III standing to bring the claims. The court found that the former employee authorized her employer to obtain the credit report and failed to allege the report was used for unauthorized purposes, therefore there was no intangible injury to her privacy. Additionally, the court determined that the injuries to her “reputational harm, compromised security, and lost time” were “‘naked assertion[s]’ of reputational harm, ‘devoid of further factual enhancement.’” As for claims against the law firm and credit reporting agency, the court found that the injury was too speculative as to the alleged failures to take reasonable measures to dispose of her information. Further, whether the credit reporting agency met all of its statutory obligations to ensure the report was for a permissible purpose was irrelevant, as she suffered no injury because she provided the employer with consent to obtain her credit report.