versus act of facts and experience hello my name is daniel zammit i'm here on behalf of mr scott hammer there are two things in this case which can't be disputed the st that the equifax and experian issued credit reports concerning mr hammer which were not complete the nd it's unfair to the consumer for a credit reporting agency to arbitrarily delete information and fail to put that information back the issue i'd like to address today is whether sixteen or fifteen u s c six hundred and eighty one e p requires completeness to the credit report as a whole as opposed to completeness as to discrete credit entries before i address the specific provisions of the i like to talk about the f series statutory purpose st the statute was enacted to ensure credit reporting which is fair and equitable to the consumer nd the act is created to protect against inaccurate and arbitrary credit reports when addressing questions under the fair credit reporting act it's important to remember the fair credit reporting act is a consumer protection statute and should be liberally construed in favor of the consumer that being said fifteen and eighty one dollars a b requires the maximum possible accuracy as the rd circuit noted in cortez there is a difference a drastic difference between accuracy and the maximum possible accuracy maximum possible accuracy accuracy involving information that's in the report or just maximum possible accuracy as a platonic ideal b is the st word that our accuracy of reports not accuracy of items within the report further goes on to the spouse accuracy of the information concerning the individual which we infer pre left out of the report and not that there was something in the report that is incomplete and therefore misleading my position is there was nothing in the report that was in misleading no discrete credit answering my position as the credit report as a whole is incomplete honestly and it is also my position that the consumer file as the credit file which is defined in the statute contains that information with the missing from the report going back to the maximum possible accuracy it contemplates accuracy as a whole and this case when i put x in experience of credit reports concerning mister the result was a misleading credit report because it didn't give an accurate representation as to mr how mr praed it were in the us as maintained by the credit reporting agencies that's a key factor here we're not saying the credit reporting agencies should said seek out all the information that can about a given consumer and put that in the or we're saying information it had here in the file which was significant and verified by capital one the creditor should have been put into the credit report in order to comply with the maximum possible accuracy accuracy in that case the credit report did not lead to the misleading result such that it would have an adverse effect to creditors and for that reason this court found there was no violation of six hundred and eighty one failed to put them back despite mr hammer's request and the request of capital one there is another basis for my position on why the  my final point on section sixty six and eighty one he is as a matter of public policy that is that you maintain that this report was misleading because of the omission that's directly on your argument miss that misleading here about that ovation i'm sure how this information being in the report mr homer would have had both a more positive credit history in terms of credit scoring and the length of his credit history would have would have been greater as well in and when we're dealing with the maximum possible accuracy in light of the f c c position well you're looking i mean your nd argument here was about section one thousand six hundred and eighty one and i don't think in terms that it applies because it says refers to the completeness or accuracy of an item from of information contained in the consumer's file but  about to report is it not that's correct and he doesn't mr hammer never disputed that the information in the quote file about capital one or yes was inaccurate  pity him the point was it was accurate and he wanted to put it in the report mr hammer the speed was simply and so the only obligation of the agency here is to determine whether the disputed information is in accurate or delete the item from the file i mean it's just topsy to it's just not at all what mr hammer was seeking to accomplish here it can be no violation of the statute under the facts a this section only applies to the file not the report that's correct and there was a valid excuse me concerning whether or not it was within his  well and then but the only obligation of the agencies is to determine whether the disputed information which would have been a capital one is an accurate dispute either the completeness or the accuracy of the given information in his credit file so the fact that the fact that there and we think there was in fact inaccuracy here is misleading in such a way and to such an extent that it can be expected to adversely affect credit to citizens so talking there about a credit entry may be an accurate not that overall credit report may be inaccurate and i mean there are lots of good reasons for that starting with the text of the statute not requiring it but also because if that were in fact the standard how would anyone possibly you know what standard could there be for deciding whether the overall impression created by the credit report is you know it's just so subjective at rochel and you can  all or the credit reporting agencies to determine whether something has to be reported or not they would be faced with an impossible determination because you'd have to be making this subjective a furniture is a not a creditor doesn't have to report to a credit reporting agency in so nothing you can ever expect that something is a complete picture and they're not representing that it is the are basically take reasonable steps reasonable procedures to ensure the accuracy of what they do report it's a sort of takes what you might call a sort of hippocratic oath approach st do no harm but what about the narrower situation presented here when mr hammer complaints that that he went to these agencies repeatedly and said here is capital one put could assume that the agency is in fact moot that this was accurate information is that you still doesn't impose you need the statutory source of the obligation this actually it is like free standing duty to disclose things it's only if something that you are reporting is made misleading in addition of the fact so if you're going reporting items that are made misleading but you're not also including this other item then there is nothing in the statute that you know there's no duty of completeness in the statute there are portions of the statu this is why you know class a can of statutory construction that the statute clearly separates accuracy and completeness and says but it's only partially reported and someone was the link when and that part was reported but they don't include the part where the delinquency was fueled and the consumer can challenge the lack of completeness of the item because the lack of completeness can make it or another classic example i'm forgetting the name of the case but  that's been a writer's yes yes ninety's so that is the sort of thing and there are so there are plenty of situations and that's like again like to be five example you can be misleading about a particular item of information that commentary that he filed before yesterday you read the language about reporting significant verified information but if you look at that paragraph again it's clear that that is talking about  it does illustrate i mean it's sort of illustrating what you also see in the case is that there's never been a case holding that this obligation exists and you know the obligation language they use but in the real world i think one area that if you're still in the world you're still in the real world here well yeah unfortunately whe you know in new orleans that's in a good way the one area that the agencies have for competing with each other is that you know they would like customers to think that their most the most complete they have the incentive to be as complete as they can be consistent with thinkers say i think that you also sort of have to turn it around again and are they doing something misleading if you had something that  said that was representing that this is complete that this covers the waterfront and it really didn't that would be misleading but the nature of credit the entire system clearly the whole point of that provision in the nose provision is to provide a consumer protection against the possibility that the consumer is going to successfully dispute and i don't mean that was standing there good and capable work later you should have not that you were including something that you shouldn't so it just doesn't frankly make any sense it's not what the alleged and the court dismissed it i do want to address an alternative request that he has and his briefing and i have a i have to give you  points out the phrase item of information and he likes to give that phrase some life concerning only something which is actually in the credit report what is the capital want information if read for for the court says a c or a must report significant verified information about a credit account or other item of information in our case we're talking about a credit account clearly that is an item of information and that does belong in the report ultimately this case comes down to what does the statute say what is the f series stated purpose the purpose is to be fair and equitable to the consumer is it fair and equitable to the consumer where in a statue that requires the maximum possible accuracy to arbitrarily remove information that the jurors know is accurate and verified and feel to put that information back at the consumer and creditors