TransUnion Faulty Credit Report Class Action Preserved

A judge decided that TransUnion cannot dodge a class action lawsuit over claims that the credit reporting agency should be held liable for its subsidiary’s failures to remove inaccurate or outdated credit information from a customers’ credit reports. 

This decision to preserve the credit report class action lawsuit was made by U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick in Pennsylvania.

The judge agreed with Patricia McIntyre, who claimed that TransUnion and its subsidiary Trans Union Rental Screening Solutions were functionally one and the same, operating as a “single, unified” credit reporting agency.

TransUnion had attempted to dodge the claims by arguing the opposite, stating that the class action claims against TransUnion improperly disregarded the “corporate separateness” of TranUnion and TURSS.

Judge Surrick explains that for a claim to survive a motion for dismissal it “must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’”

McIntyre says that she does not “assert a claim for corporate veil piercing” as TransUnion alleges, and is not proposing an “alter ego theory of liability against TransUnion for the conduct of its subsidiaries.”

Expanding on this assertion, McIntyre argues that TransUnion has evaded the requirements of the Fair Credit and Reporting Act “through creative corporate restructuring” by delegating certain functions to TURSS in an effort to dodge having to disclose consumer files.

According to the TransUnion credit report inaccuracies class action lawsuit, TransUnion and TURSS sold a credit report to prospective landlords of McIntyre that included inaccurate information. Allegedly, multiple evictions were included in the report, though they were out-of-date and had been settled. In McIntyre’s eyes, she was injured because many landlords refused to rent to her after seeing this report.

The plaintiff says she requested her credit report from both TransUnion and TURSS, but TransUnion did not provide her with a complete file. She asserts that TURSS did provide the complete information, but TransUnion was still obligated to do so.

The TransUnion class action lawsuit claims that TransUnion unlawfully used its relationship with TURSS to avoid federal regulations, and through its conduct, presented inaccurate information on McIntyre’s credit report.

According to the plaintiff, the law states that companies are prohibiting from avoiding being treated as a reporting agency through corporate reorganization or similar means, and this is just what TransUnion did.

Have you had inaccurate information on your credit report? Were you able to get it corrected? 

McIntyre is represented by James Francis, John Soumilas, and Lauren Brennan of Francis & Mailman PC and Leonard Bennett of Consumer Litigation Associates PC.

The TransUnion Credit Reporting Class Action Lawsuit is McIntyre v. TransUnion, et al., Case No. 2:18-cv-03865, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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