TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2020 1 Syllabus NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337 .

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus TRANSUNION LLC v. RAMIREZ CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT No. 20–297. Argued March 30, 2021—Decided June 25, 2021 The Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates the consumer reporting agencies that compile and disseminate personal information about consumers.

15 U. S. C. §1681 et seq. The Act also creates a cause of action for con- sumers to sue and recover damages for certain violations. §1681n(a). TransUnion is a credit reporting agency that compiles personal and financial information about individual consumers to create consumer reports and then sells those reports for use by entities that request information about the creditworthiness of individual consumers. Be- ginning in 2002, TransUnion introduced an add-on product called OFAC Name Screen Alert. When a business opted into the Name Screen service, TransUnion would conduct its ordinary credit check of the consumer, and it would also use third-party software to compare the consumer’s name against a list maintained by the U. S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of terrorists, drug traffickers, and other serious criminals. If the consumer’s first and last name matched the first and last name of an individual on OFAC’s list, then TransUnion would place an alert on the credit report indicating that the consumer’s name was a “potential match” to a name on the OFAC list. At that time, TransUnion did not compare any data other than first and last names. A class of 8,185 individuals with OFAC alerts in their credit files sued TransUnion under the Fair Credit Reporting Act for failing to use reasonable procedures to ensure the accuracy of their credit files. The plaintiffs also complained about formatting defects in certain mailings sent to them by TransUnion. The parties stipulated prior to trial that only 1,853 class members (including the named plaintiff Sergio Ramirez) had their misleading credit reports containing OFAC alerts provided to third parties during the 7-month period specified in the 2 TRANSUNION LLC v. RAMIREZ Syllabus class definition. The internal credit files of the other 6,332 class mem- bers were not provided to third parties during the relevant time period. The District Court ruled that all class members had Article III stand- ing on each of the three statutory claims. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs and awarded each class member statutory damages and punitive damages. A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed in relevant part. Held: Only plaintiffs concretely harmed by a defendant’s statutory viola- tion have Article III standing to seek damages against that private de- fendant in federal court. Pp. 6–27. (a) Article III confines the federal judicial power to the resolution of “Cases” and “Controversies” in which a plaintiff has a “personal stake.” Raines v. Byrd, 521 U. S. 811 , 819–820. To have Article III standing to sue in federal court, a plaintiff must show, among other things, that the plaintiff suffered concrete injury in fact. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555 , 560–561. Central to assessing concreteness is whether the asserted harm has a “close relationship” to a harm “tradi- tionally” recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit in American courts. Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U. S. 330 , 340. That inquiry asks whether plaintiffs have identified a close historical or common-law an- alogue for their asserted injury. Physical or monetary harms readily qualify as concrete injuries under Article III, and various intangible harms—like reputational harms—can also be concrete. Ibid.