Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-17-17244/USCOURTS-ca9-17-17244-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

SERGIO L. RAMIREZ,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

TRANSUNION LLC,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 17-17244

D.C. No.

3:12-cv-00632-JSC

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

Jacqueline Scott Corley, Magistrate Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted February 14, 2019

San Francisco, California

Filed February 27, 2020

Before: M. Margaret McKeown, William A. Fletcher,

and Mary H. Murguia, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Murguia;

Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by 

Judge McKeown

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2 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

SUMMARY*

Fair Credit Reporting Act

The panel affirmed in part and reversed and vacated in 

part the district court’s judgment against credit reporting 

agency TransUnion LLC following a jury trial in a consumer 

class action brought under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

TransUnion, aware that its practice was unlawful, 

incorrectly placed terrorist alerts on the front page of the 

consumers’ credit reports and subsequently sent the 

consumers confusing and incomplete information about the 

alerts and how to get them removed. The jury assessed 

$60 million in damages for three FCRA violations: 

(1) willful failure to follow reasonable procedures to assure 

accuracy of the terrorist alerts in violation of 15 U.S.C. 

§ 1681e(b); (2) willful failure to disclose to the class 

members their entire credit reports by excluding the alerts 

from the reports in violation of § 1681g(a)(1); and (3) willful 

failure to provide a summary of rights in violation of 

§ 1681g(c)(2).

Affirming in part, the panel held that every member of a 

class certified under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23, rather than only the 

class representative, must satisfy the basic requirements of 

Article III standing at the final stage of a money damages 

suit when class members are to be awarded individual 

monetary damages. The panel concluded that each of the 

8,185 class members had standing on each of the class 

claims because TransUnion’s reckless handling of 

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It 

has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 3

information from the Department of the Treasury’s Office of 

Foreign Assets Control exposed every class member to a real 

risk of harm to their concrete privacy, reputational, and 

informational interests protected by the FCRA. As to the 

reasonable procedures claim, distinguishing a decision of the 

D.C. Circuit, the panel held that the violation of a statutory 

right constituted a concrete injury under the test set forth in 

Robins v. Spokeo Inc., 867 F.3d 1108 (9th Cir. 2017). The 

panel held that each class member also established standing 

on the disclosure and summary-of-rights claims.

The panel rejected TransUnion’s arguments regarding 

the sufficiency of the evidence, Rule 23 certification, and 

statutory damages. The panel held that TransUnion was not 

entitled to judgment as a matter of law or to a new trial on 

the ground that plaintiff failed to prove the willfulness of 

TransUnion’s FCRA violations. The panel held that the 

district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the 

class representative’s claims were typical of the class’s 

claims and in certifying and refusing to decertify the class. 

In addition, the jury’s award of statutory damages near the 

high end of the range was clearly justified.

Reversing and vacating in part, the panel held that the 

punitive damages award was excessive in violation of 

constitutional due process. The panel remanded with 

instructions to reduce the punitive-damages award from 

$6,353.08 per class member to $3,936.88 per class member.

Concurring in part and dissenting in part, Judge 

McKeown agreed with the majority that Article III and the 

Rules Enabling Act require all members of a damages class 

to have standing at trial, and so the 1,853 class members 

whose inaccurate information was disclosed to a third party 

had standing to assert a reasonable procedures claim. Judge 

McKeown also agreed that the punitive damages award was 

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4 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

impermissibly excessive. She dissented in part because, in 

her view, no one but the class representative and the class 

members whose information was disclosed to a third party 

had standing to assert a reasonable procedures claim, and 

only the class representative had standing to bring the 

disclosure and summary-of-rights claims.

COUNSEL

Paul D. Clement (argued), Erin E. Murphy, Robert M. 

Bernstein, and Matthew D. Rowen, Kirkland & Ellis LLP,

Washington, D.C.; Julia B. Strickland, Stephen J. Newman, 

Christine E. Ellice, and Jason Yoo, Stroock & Stroock & 

Lavan LLP, Los Angeles, California; for DefendantAppellant.

James A. Francis (argued), John Soumilas, David A. Searles, 

and Lauren KW Brennan, Francis & Mailman P.C., 

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Andrew J. Ogilvie and Carol 

McLean Brewer, San Francisco, California; for PlaintiffAppellee.

Andrew J. Pincus, Archis A. Parasharami, and Daniel E. 

Jones, Mayer Brown LLP, Washington, D.C.; Steven P. 

Lehotsky and Warren Postman, U.S. Chamber Litigation 

Center Inc., Washington, D.C.; for Amicus Curiae Chamber 

of Commerce of the United States of America.

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 5

OPINION

MURGUIA, Circuit Judge:

This case asks us to resolve whether a class of consumers 

may sue and recover damages from a credit reporting agency 

pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), where 

the agency—aware that its practice was unlawful—

incorrectly placed terrorist alerts on the front page of the 

consumers’ credit reports and subsequently sent the 

consumers confusing and incomplete information about the 

alerts and how to get them removed.

The United States Department of the Treasury’s Office 

of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) maintains a list of 

Specially Designated Nationals (“SDNs”), i.e., individuals 

who are prohibited from transacting business in the United 

States for national security reasons. Because merchants who 

transact with an SDN can face harsh fines, TransUnion LLC 

(“TransUnion”), one of the three largest credit reporting 

agencies, saw a business opportunity in developing a product 

for its clients that “matched” consumers’ names to 

individuals on the OFAC list.

In producing these purported matches, TransUnion 

coordinated with a third-party vendor and used a software 

that conducted basic first-and-last-name searches—despite 

having the capability to conduct more accurate searches and 

despite having been put on notice by another circuit court in 

2010 that this practice violated the FCRA. As a result, 

TransUnion inaccurately added OFAC alerts to the front 

page of the credit reports of thousands of consumers. When 

consumers began discovering the alerts and trying to have 

them removed, TransUnion both sent them confusing 

information falsely suggesting that the alerts had been 

removed and withheld information about how to dispute the 

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6 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

alerts. TransUnion’s practice triggered significant concern 

among affected consumers, such that a number of them 

contacted the Department of the Treasury directly to inquire 

about the terrorist labels.

The consumers brought this class action against 

TransUnion pursuant to the FCRA, and a jury assessed 

$60 million in damages for three willful violations of the 

statute. In this appeal, TransUnion claims that the verdict 

cannot stand because only Sergio Ramirez, the 

representative plaintiff, suffered a concrete and 

particularized injury as a result of TransUnion’s unlawful 

practice. According to TransUnion, the other thousands of 

class members whose credit reports contained the inaccurate 

terrorist alerts and received the confusing and incomplete 

mailings did not suffer the irreducible constitutional 

minimum showing of harm that Article III standing requires. 

Ramirez, on the other hand, argues that the class members 

do not need to demonstrate standing at all because, in a class 

action, only the representative plaintiff must have standing. 

The issue of who must show standing in a class action at the 

final stage of a damages suit is a question of first impression 

in this circuit.

For the reasons explained below, we hold that every 

member of a class certified under Rule 23 must satisfy the 

basic requirements of Article III standing at the final stage 

of a money damages suit when class members are to be 

awarded individual monetary damages.1

 Therefore, the 

dispositive question in this case is whether each of the 8,185 

class members had standing on each of the class claims. We 

1 Our holding does not alter the showing required at the class 

certification stage or other early stages of a case, and it does not apply to 

cases involving only injunctive relief.

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 7

conclude that they did. We also reject TransUnion’s 

arguments regarding the sufficiency of the evidence, Rule 23 

certification, and statutory damages. However, we hold that 

the punitive damages award is excessive in violation of 

constitutional due process. We reduce the punitive-damages 

award from $6,353.08 per class member to $3,936.88 per 

class member, but otherwise affirm the verdict and 

judgment.

I. Background

A. Factual History

In February 2011, Sergio Ramirez went to a Nissan car 

dealership with his wife and father-in-law to purchase a car. 

After the Ramirezes selected a car and negotiated the terms, 

the dealership ran a joint credit check on Ramirez and his 

wife. But once the dealership obtained the credit reports, the 

salesman told Ramirez that Nissan would not sell the car to 

Ramirez because he was on “a terrorist list.”

The credit report had been prepared by TransUnion, one 

of the nation’s three largest consumer reporting agencies 

(“CRA”). The report contained the following statement on 

the first page: “***OFAC ADVISOR ALERT - INPUT 

NAME MATCHES NAME ON THE OFAC 

DATABASE[.]” The report also listed the names and 

birthdates of the two prohibited Specially Designated 

Nationals who purportedly “matched” Ramirez: Sergio 

Humberto Ramirez Aguirre (born 11/22/1951) and Sergio 

Alberto Cedula Ramirez Rivera (born 01/14/196*). The 

report indicated that Ramirez’s middle initial was “L” and 

his birth year was 1976.

The salesman refused to take further steps to verify 

whether Ramirez was in fact on the OFAC list. He also 

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8 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

refused to provide Ramirez a copy of his credit report, 

instead recommending to Ramirez that he contact 

TransUnion directly. Eventually, however, the salesman 

agreed to sell the car to Ramirez’s wife. Ramirez’s wife 

completed a credit application on her own behalf, and, after 

another hour, she was able to purchase the car.

Ramirez testified that he was embarrassed, shocked, and 

scared when he learned his name was on a terrorist watch 

list. Ramirez was also disappointed and embarrassed that he 

was unable to purchase the car because he and his wife 

always made major purchases jointly. Confused and not 

knowing what to do, Ramirez began researching what the 

alert meant and how to have it removed. Ramirez first called 

the Department of the Treasury, but they advised him that he

would need to contact TransUnion. When Ramirez called 

TransUnion, he was repeatedly told that there was no OFAC 

alert on his credit report. Ultimately, Ramirez requested a 

copy of his credit report so he could verify whether it 

contained an OFAC alert.

On February 28, 2011, TransUnion sent Ramirez a copy 

of his credit report. The first page of the mailing stated:

Enclosed is the TransUnion Personal Credit 

Report that you requested. As a trusted leader 

in the consumer credit information industry, 

TransUnion takes the accuracy of your credit 

information very seriously. We are 

committed to providing the complete and 

reliable credit information that you need to 

participate in everyday transactions and 

purchases.

If you believe an item of information to be 

incomplete or inaccurate, please alert us 

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 9

immediately. We will investigate the data and 

notify you of the results of our investigation.

The remainder of the page included information about and 

instructions for an online request for investigation. The 

following pages contained a copy of Ramirez’s credit report, 

information regarding how to dispute inaccurate 

information, and a “Summary of Rights” under the FCRA. 

The credit report contained no mention of OFAC. Ramirez 

was confused by the report’s lack of any information 

regarding OFAC, but he thought perhaps the problem had 

been resolved.

The next day, on March 1, 2011, TransUnion sent 

Ramirez a separate letter (the “OFAC Letter”). The OFAC 

Letter stated:

Thank you for contacting TransUnion. Our 

goal is to maintain complete and accurate 

information on consumer credit reports.

Our records show that you recently requested 

a disclosure of your TransUnion credit report. 

That report has been mailed to you 

separately. As a courtesy to you, we also 

want to make you aware that the name that 

appears on your TransUnion credit file 

“SERGIO L RAMIREZ” is considered a 

potential match to information listed on the 

United States Department of Treasury’s 

Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) 

Database.

The OFAC Database contains a list of 

individuals and entities that are prohibited by 

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10 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

the U.S. Department of Treasury from doing 

business in or with the United States. 

Financial institutions are required to check 

customers’ names against the OFAC 

Database, and if a potential name match is 

found, to verify whether their potential 

customer is the person on the OFAC 

Database. For this reason, some financial 

institutions may ask for your date of birth, or 

they may ask to a see a copy of a governmentissued form of identification . . . . Some 

financial institutions will search names 

against this database themselves, or they may 

ask another company, such as TransUnion, to 

do so on their behalf. We want you to know 

that this information may be provided to such 

authorized parties.

The OFAC record that is considered a 

potential match to the name on your credit 

file is:

[OFAC records for the two prohibited SDNs 

who purportedly matched Ramirez, which 

include first, middle, and last names, dates of 

birth, and passport information]

For more details regarding the OFAC 

Database, please visit [the U.S. Department 

of the Treasury’s website].

If you have additional questions or concerns, 

you can contact TransUnion at [phone 

number and mailing address].

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 11

Unlike the credit-report mailing, there was no summary-ofrights form attached to the OFAC Letter.

Ramirez testified that he was confused by the two 

mailings. The lack of any OFAC information in the creditreport mailing suggested the alert had been removed, but the 

OFAC Letter mailing suggested otherwise. Ramirez also did 

not know how to remedy the issue because the OFAC Letter 

did not include instructions for initiating a dispute. 

Concerned about possible consequences of the OFAC 

match, Ramirez canceled an international vacation he had 

planned with his family.

Finally, Ramirez consulted with a lawyer and, at the 

lawyer’s advice, wrote a letter to TransUnion in March 2011 

requesting that the OFAC alert be removed from his report. 

TransUnion responded in writing that the alert had been 

removed.

Ramirez was not the only consumer who TransUnion 

incorrectly labeled as a prohibited SDN. TransUnion sent 

the same OFAC Letter to 8,184 other consumers who also 

requested copies of their credit reports between January 

2011 and July 2011. In February 2012, Ramirez sued 

TransUnion on behalf of himself and the 8,184 other 

consumers who were falsely labeled as prohibited SDNs. 

Ramirez alleged that TransUnion violated the FCRA by 

placing the false OFAC alerts on their credit reports and later 

sending misleading and incomplete disclosures about the 

alerts.

B. TransUnion’s “OFAC Advisor” Product

The class’s claims trace back to TransUnion’s launch of 

a new product in 2002 and its erroneous belief that the new 

product was exempt from the FCRA. TransUnion saw a 

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12 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

business opportunity because its clients—who purchase 

consumer credit reports from TransUnion because they are 

deciding whether to offer credit to consumers—are legally 

obligated to ensure they are not offering credit to a 

prohibited SDN appearing on the OFAC list. TransUnion 

therefore developed a product it called “OFAC Advisor,” 

which added an alert to a consumer’s credit report indicating 

whether the consumer was a prohibited SDN on the OFAC 

list.

TransUnion obtained the information about whether 

consumers were OFAC matches from a third-party 

company, Accuity, Inc. Accuity’s software conducted a 

“name-only” search, running a consumer’s first and last 

name against the names on the OFAC list. A search would 

result in a match if the consumer’s first and last name were 

either identical or similar to a name on the OFAC list (e.g., 

“Cortez” would match with “Cortes”).2

When TransUnion first began offering the OFAC 

Advisor product, it determined that the OFAC alerts being 

placed on consumer credit reports were exempt from the 

FCRA, including the FCRA’s requirement that TransUnion 

“follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible 

accuracy of the information” it placed on consumer credit 

reports. 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b). Specifically, TransUnion 

determined the OFAC alerts were not governed by the 

FCRA because the OFAC list was not stored in 

TransUnion’s database; the data was stored in a separate file 

2 In collecting other types of data for use on consumer reports—such 

as tax liens or bankruptcy judgments—TransUnion used at least one 

additional identifier other than the consumer’s name (e.g., address, date 

of birth, or social security number). OFAC information was the only 

consumer-report data that TransUnion collected using name alone.

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 13

and software supplied by TransUnion’s third-party vendor, 

Accuity. Therefore, TransUnion did not follow its normal 

procedures to ensure accuracy.

TransUnion also adopted a policy of not disclosing 

OFAC matches to affected consumers when the consumers 

requested a copy of their credit reports. Although 

TransUnion received a number of consumer complaints after 

it launched OFAC Advisor and adopted these policies, 

TransUnion remained mostly unscathed for these practices 

until 2005 when a consumer sued.

C. The Cortez Litigation

In 2005, Sandra Cortez, a consumer, sued TransUnion in 

the Eastern District of Pennsylvania under circumstances 

similar to Ramirez’s. See Cortez v. Trans Union, LLC, 

617 F.3d 688, 696–706 (3d Cir. 2010). Cortez attempted to 

purchase a car but was delayed for hours because 

TransUnion sent the car dealership a credit report with a 

false OFAC alert on it. Id. at 697–99. When Cortez 

attempted to resolve the issue, TransUnion repeatedly told 

her that there was no OFAC alert on her report and refused 

to investigate or remove the alert. Id. at 699–700.

A jury found in Cortez’s favor on four FCRA claims: 

(1) TransUnion negligently failed to follow reasonable 

procedures to ensure maximum possible accuracy in 

producing Cortez’s credit report, in violation of 15 U.S.C. 

§ 1681e(b); (2) TransUnion willfully failed to provide 

Cortez all information in her file despite her requests, in 

violation of § 1681g(a); (3) TransUnion willfully failed to 

reinvestigate the OFAC alert after Cortez informed 

TransUnion of the false alert, in violation of § 1681i(a); and 

(4) TransUnion willfully failed to note Cortez’s dispute on 

subsequent reports, in violation of § 1681i(c). Id. at 705. 

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14 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

The jury awarded Cortez $50,000 in actual damages and 

$750,000 in punitive damages. Id. The district court 

remitted the punitive damages to $100,000, but otherwise 

upheld the verdict. Id. at 705–06.

On appeal, TransUnion argued that OFAC information 

was not covered by the FCRA because it was not part of the 

“consumer report” as defined by the statute. Id. at 706.3 In 

August 2010, the Third Circuit flatly rejected this argument, 

noting that it was “difficult to imagine an inquiry more 

central to a consumer’s ‘eligibility’ for credit than whether 

federal law prohibits extending credit to that consumer in the 

first instance.” Id. at 707–08 (quoting 15 U.S.C. 

§ 1681a(d)(1)). The court upheld the jury’s verdict on the 

reasonable procedures claim, explaining: “The jury could 

reasonably conclude that [TransUnion] could have taken 

steps to minimize the possibility that it would erroneously 

place an OFAC alert on a credit report, such as checking the 

birth date of the consumer against the birth date of the person 

on the SDN List.” Id. at 709.

With respect to Cortez’s second claim, that TransUnion 

willfully failed to disclose all of the information in Cortez’s 

file when she requested it, TransUnion argued that OFAC 

3 Under the FCRA, a consumer report is defined as “any written, 

oral, or other communication of any information by a [CRA] bearing on 

a consumer’s credit worthiness, credit standing, credit capacity, 

character, general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living 

which is used or expected to be used or collected in whole or in part for 

the purpose of serving as a factor in establishing the consumer’s 

eligibility for” credit, employment, or another purpose authorized by the 

statute. 15 U.S.C. § 1681a(d)(1).

We use the terms “consumer report” and “credit report” 

interchangeably in this Opinion.

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 15

information was not part of the consumer “file” because 

TransUnion did not store OFAC information in its usual 

database; rather, it contracted with Accuity to store the 

information separately. Id. at 711. Again, the Third Circuit 

emphatically rejected this argument: “We do not believe 

that Congress intended to allow credit reporting companies 

to escape the disclosure requirement in § 1681a(g) by simply 

contracting with a third party to store and maintain 

information that would otherwise clearly be part of the 

consumer’s file and is included in a credit report.” Id.

Finally, the court upheld Cortez’s reinvestigation and 

dispute claims, and affirmed the district court’s rulings as to 

damages. Id. at 712–24. However, the court expressed 

concern over the district court’s reduction of the punitivedamages award because “the record certainly support[ed] a 

jury becoming ‘incensed’ over [TransUnion’s] 

‘insensitivity’ to Cortez’s claim[.]” Id. at 718 n.37.

D. TransUnion’s OFAC Practices After the Cortez

Litigation

After being slammed with an $800,000 jury verdict 

(subsequently remitted to $150,000) in Cortez, TransUnion 

made surprisingly few changes to its practices regarding 

OFAC alerts. In November 2010, TransUnion changed the 

language of the OFAC alert used on credit reports. Instead 

of stating that a consumer was a “match” to the OFAC list, 

the reports would state that a consumer was a “potential 

match.” TransUnion also made some adjustments to its 

matching algorithm, including requiring an exact match 

between first and last names, reducing the false-positive rate 

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16 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

from about 5 percent to about 0.5 percent.4 TransUnion 

requested additional software enhancements from Accuity, 

but these were not implemented until 2013.

Within the timeframe of the Cortez litigation, 

TransUnion received warnings about its OFAC practices 

from officials at the Department of the Treasury’s OFAC. In 

an October 2010 letter to TransUnion, OFAC officials noted 

that they continued to hear from TransUnion customers and 

individual consumers who had been adversely affected by 

false OFAC alerts on TransUnion credit reports. OFAC 

officials expressed concern that a product “that does not 

include rudimentary checks to avoid false positive reporting 

can create more confusion than clarity and cause harm to 

innocent consumers.” OFAC officials were particularly 

worried by OFAC alerts being “disseminated broadly in 

conjunction with credit reports.”

As a result of these warnings from OFAC officials and 

the Cortez litigation, TransUnion also changed how it 

communicated with consumers about the OFAC alerts on 

their credit reports. Beginning in January 2011, when 

consumers flagged as OFAC matches requested copies of 

their credit reports, TransUnion would send them two 

mailings: (1) the consumer’s credit report with the OFAC 

alert redacted, and (2) a separately mailed OFAC Letter. 

The OFAC Letters were sent within one day of the credit 

reports. These letters were substantially similar to the one 

described above that Ramirez received. TransUnion did not 

include a summary-of-rights form in the mailings containing 

4 TransUnion presented no data showing that any of its name 

matches through OFAC Advisor were correct. In other words, 

TransUnion could not confirm that a single OFAC alert sold to its 

customers was accurate.

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 17

the OFAC Letters. In July 2011, TransUnion finally stopped 

sending OFAC Letters and began including OFAC alerts 

directly on the credit reports it sent to consumers.

E. Procedural History

In February 2012, Ramirez filed a putative class action 

against TransUnion alleging that TransUnion’s OFAC 

practices violated multiple provisions of the FCRA. The 

district court certified a class action under Rule 23 of the 

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure over TransUnion’s 

objection and denied TransUnion’s motion to decertify the 

class.

The class included “all natural persons in the United 

States and its Territories to whom TransUnion sent a letter 

similar in form to the March 1, 2011 [OFAC Letter] 

TransUnion sent to [Ramirez] . . . from January 1, 2011-July 

26, 2011.” In other words, everyone in the class: (1) was 

falsely labeled by TransUnion’s name-only software as a 

potential OFAC match; (2) requested a copy of his or her 

credit report from TransUnion; and (3) in response, received 

a credit-report mailing with the OFAC alert redacted and a 

separate OFAC Letter mailing with no summary of rights.

Based on TransUnion’s records, the parties stipulated 

that there were 8,185 consumers, including Ramirez, who 

fell within this class. Out of those 8,185, the records 

reflected that 1,853 had their credit reports requested by a 

potential credit grantor during the class period (January 2011 

to July 2011). TransUnion did not furnish credit reports to 

third parties during the class period for the remaining 6,332 

class members.

The case proceeded to a jury trial on three claims. First, 

the class alleged that TransUnion willfully failed to follow 

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18 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

reasonable procedures to assure accuracy of the OFAC alerts 

because TransUnion used rudimentary name-only matching 

software without any additional checks to avoid false 

positives. See 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b). Second, the class 

alleged that TransUnion willfully failed to disclose to the 

class members their entire credit reports by excluding the 

OFAC alerts from the reports. See id. § 1681g(a)(1). Third, 

the class alleged that TransUnion willfully failed to provide 

a summary of rights as required under the FCRA when it sent 

consumers the OFAC Letters. See id. § 1681g(c)(2).

The jury found in favor of the class on all three claims 

and awarded each class member $984.22 in statutory 

damages (about $8 million classwide) and $6,353.08 in 

punitive damages (about $52 million classwide). 

TransUnion filed a renewed motion for judgment as a matter 

of law, and moved alternatively for a new trial, remittitur, or 

an amended judgment, all of which the district court denied. 

TransUnion appealed, raising four arguments. We have 

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We address each 

argument in turn.

II. Article III Standing

TransUnion first argues that the verdict cannot stand 

because none of the class members—other than Ramirez—

had standing under Article III of the United States 

Constitution. We review the district court’s rulings 

regarding standing de novo. Fair Hous. of Marin v. Combs, 

285 F.3d 899, 902 (9th Cir. 2002).

Standing is an “essential and unchanging part of the 

case-or-controversy requirement of Article III.” Lujan v. 

Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). The “irreducible 

constitutional minimum” of standing requires a plaintiff to 

establish three elements: (1) “the plaintiff must have 

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 19

suffered an ‘injury in fact’” that is “concrete and 

particularized” and “actual or imminent;” (2) “there must be 

a causal connection between the injury and the conduct 

complained of;” and (3) “it must be ‘likely,’ as opposed to 

merely ‘speculative,’ that the injury will be ‘redressed by a 

favorable decision.’” Id. at 560–61 (citations omitted).

A. Who Needs Standing

The parties first dispute who must demonstrate standing 

to recover damages—only the class representative (i.e., only 

Ramirez) or every class member. This Court has previously 

held that only the representative plaintiff need allege 

standing at the motion to dismiss and class certification 

stages, see In re Zappos.com, Inc., 888 F.3d 1020, 1028 n.11 

(9th Cir. 2018); Melendres v. Arpaio, 784 F.3d 1254, 1262 

(9th Cir. 2015),5 and even at the final judgment stage in class 

actions involving only injunctive relief, see Bates v. United 

Parcel Serv., Inc., 511 F.3d 974, 985 (9th Cir. 2007) (en 

banc); Casey v. Lewis, 4 F.3d 1516, 1519–20 (9th Cir. 1993). 

But we have never addressed the question of who must have 

standing at the final stage of a money damages suit when 

class members are to be awarded individual monetary 

damages.

We address that question today and hold that each 

member of a class certified under Rule 23 must satisfy the 

bare minimum of Article III standing at the final judgment 

stage of a class action in order to recover monetary damages 

in federal court. Although this is an issue of first impression 

for this Court, our holding today clearly follows from 

5 See also Neale v. Volvo Cars of N. Am., 794 F.3d 353, 362 (3d Cir. 

2015) (holding that “unnamed, putative class members need not establish 

Article III standing” in damages action at class certification stage).

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20 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

Supreme Court precedent, as well as the fundamental nature 

of our judicial system.6

The Supreme Court has held, albeit in a different context, 

that all parties seeking to recover a monetary award in their 

own name must show Article III standing. See Town of 

Chester, N.Y. v. Laroe Estates, Inc., 137 S. Ct. 1645, 1651 

(2017) (holding that “an intervenor of right” under Federal 

Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a)(2) “must have Article III 

standing in order to pursue relief that is different from that 

which is sought by a party with standing[,]” including where 

“both the plaintiff and the intervenor seek separate money 

judgments in their own names.”); see also Tyson Foods, Inc. 

v. Bouaphakeo, 136 S. Ct. 1036, 1053 (2016) (Roberts, C.J., 

concurring) (“Article III does not give federal courts the 

power to order relief to any uninjured plaintiff, class action 

or not. The Judiciary’s role is limited ‘to provid[ing] relief 

to claimants, in individual or class actions, who have 

suffered, or will imminently suffer, actual harm.’” (quoting 

Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 349 (1996))).

6 Our holding does not apply to class actions involving only 

injunctive relief. Nor does our holding alter the showing required at the 

class certification stage or other early stages of a case. We address only 

the circumstances of this case: court-awarded, individual monetary 

awards for class members at the final judgment stage of a class action. 

We note that, although the standing inquiry in the early stages of a case 

focuses on the representative plaintiffs, district courts and parties should 

keep in mind that they will need a mechanism for identifying class 

members who lack standing at the damages phase. See Torres v. Mercer 

Canyons Inc., 835 F.3d 1125, 1137 (9th Cir. 2016) (“[F]ortuitous noninjury to a subset of class members does not necessarily defeat 

certification of the entire class, particularly as the district court is well 

situated to winnow out those non-injured members at the damages phase 

of the litigation, or to refine the class definition.” (citing 1 W. 

Rubenstein, Newberg on Class Actions § 2:3 (5th ed. 2019))).

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 21

The same rule applies here. To hold otherwise would 

directly contravene the Rules Enabling Act, because it would 

transform the class action—a mere procedural device—into 

a vehicle for individuals to obtain money judgments in 

federal court even though they could not show sufficient 

injury to recover those judgments individually. See

28 U.S.C. § 2072(b) (“[Rules of procedure] shall not 

abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right.”).

B. Merits of the Standing Inquiry

Having concluded that each class member must have 

standing to recover damages, we turn to the dispositive and 

more difficult question in this case: Did each of the 8,185 

class members have standing? TransUnion challenges only 

the first standing requirement—injury in fact. Because a 

“plaintiff must demonstrate standing for each claim he seeks 

to press,” DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 335 

(2006), we address standing for each of the class’s three 

claims. Plaintiffs bore the burden of proving standing 

through evidence at trial. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561.

1. Reasonable Procedures Claim

Under § 1681e(b) of the FCRA, “[w]henever a [CRA] 

prepares a consumer report it shall follow reasonable 

procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the 

information concerning the individual about whom the 

report relates.” 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b). The class’s first claim 

is that TransUnion willfully failed to follow reasonable 

procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy when it 

collected OFAC information using rudimentary name-only 

searches and placed the inaccurate information on the class 

members’ credit reports without further verification.

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22 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

TransUnion argues that, to have suffered a concrete 

injury from the § 1681e(b) violation, each class member 

must show that TransUnion disclosed his or her credit report 

to a third party. In other words, TransUnion argues no injury 

results from a false OFAC alert until someone other than 

TransUnion and the consumer sees it. For support, 

TransUnion relies on the Supreme Court’s decision in 

Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (Spokeo II), 136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016).

Prior to Spokeo II, we held that the violation of a 

“statutory right”—including an FCRA violation—“is 

usually a sufficient injury in fact to confer standing” without 

any showing of actual harm. See Robins v. Spokeo, Inc. 

(Spokeo I), 742 F.3d 409, 412 (9th Cir. 2014), vacated and 

remanded, 136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016). The Supreme Court 

granted certiorari and reversed, explaining that “Congress 

cannot erase Article III’s standing requirements by 

statutorily granting the right to sue to a plaintiff who would 

not otherwise have standing.” Spokeo II, 136 S. Ct. at 1547–

48 (quoting Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 820 n.3 (1997)). 

Rather, “Article III standing requires a concrete injury even 

in the context of a statutory violation.” Id. at 1549.

The Supreme Court recognized, however, that an injury 

may still be concrete even if intangible. Id. And there is 

sufficient injury in fact when a defendant’s statutory 

violation creates a “risk of real harm” to a plaintiff’s concrete 

interest. Id. In determining whether an intangible harm 

constitutes an injury in fact, we look to historically 

recognized injuries and Congress’s judgment. Id. We look 

to history to determine “whether an alleged intangible harm 

has a close relationship to a harm that has traditionally been 

regarded as providing a basis for a lawsuit in English or 

American courts.” Id. And we are guided by Congress’s 

judgment because “Congress is well positioned to identify 

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 23

intangible harms that meet minimum Article III 

requirements[.]” Id.

Spokeo also involved a consumer’s claim against a CRA 

under § 1681e(b). Robins, a consumer, alleged that Spokeo, 

a CRA that operated a people-search website, published a 

profile about him on its website that contained inaccurate 

information regarding his age, marital status, wealth, 

employment, and education. Robins v. Spokeo, Inc. (Spokeo 

III), 867 F.3d 1108, 1111 (9th Cir. 2017). With respect to 

injury in fact, Robins alleged that the presence of the false 

information on Spokeo’s website “harmed his employment 

prospects at a time when he was out of work” and caused 

him emotional distress. Id.

The Supreme Court declined to decide whether Robins 

sufficiently alleged a concrete injury, but it provided the 

following guidance:

On the one hand, Congress plainly sought to 

curb the dissemination of false information 

by adopting procedures designed to decrease 

that risk. On the other hand, Robins cannot 

satisfy the demands of Article III by alleging 

a bare procedural violation. A violation of 

one of the FCRA’s procedural requirements 

may result in no harm. For example, even if 

a [CRA] fails to provide the required notice 

to a user of the agency’s consumer 

information, that information regardless may 

be entirely accurate. In addition, not all 

inaccuracies cause harm or present any 

material risk of harm. An example that 

comes readily to mind is an incorrect zip 

code. It is difficult to imagine how the 

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24 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

dissemination of an incorrect zip code, 

without more, could work any concrete harm.

Spokeo II, 136 S. Ct. at 1550.

On remand, we held that Robins alleged a material risk 

of harm to his concrete interests sufficient to satisfy Article 

III standing. Spokeo III, 867 F.3d at 1118. We adopted a 

two-part inquiry for determining whether the violation of a 

statutory right constitutes a concrete injury: “(1) whether the 

statutory provisions at issue were established to protect [the 

plaintiff’s] concrete interests (as opposed to purely 

procedural rights), and if so, (2) whether the specific 

procedural violations alleged . . . actually harm, or present a 

material risk of harm to, such interests.” Id. at 1113.

In Robins’s case, we held at step one that § 1681e(b) was 

enacted to protect consumers’ concrete interests in avoiding 

the very real-world harms that result from inaccurate credit 

reporting—such as the inability to obtain credit and 

employment and “the uncertainty and stress” that consumers 

experience when they discover inaccurate information in 

their credit reports. Id. at 1114. We noted that “the interests 

that [the] FCRA protects also resemble other reputational 

and privacy interests that have long been protected in the 

law.” Id. At step two, we concluded that Robins had been 

exposed to a material risk of harm to that concrete interest 

because Spokeo published inaccurate information on its 

website that was far more material than a mere incorrect zip 

code. Id. at 1116–17.

Applying the test to the facts of this case, we conclude 

that all 8,185 class members suffered a material risk of harm 

to their concrete interests protected by § 1681e(b) as a result 

of TransUnion’s failure to follow reasonable procedures to 

assure maximum possible accuracy of OFAC information.

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 25

Step one is clear. Congress enacted the FCRA, including 

§ 1681e(b), “to protect consumers’ concrete interests.” Id.

at 1113. “[G]iven the ubiquity and importance of consumer 

reports in modern life—in employment decisions, in loan 

applications, in home purchases, and much more—the realworld implications of material inaccuracies in those reports 

seem patent on their face.” Id. at 1114. The FCRA’s 

reasonable procedures requirement is particularly important 

because the “threat to a consumer’s livelihood is caused by 

the very existence of inaccurate information in his credit 

report and the likelihood that such information will be 

important to one of the many entities who make use of such 

reports[.]” Id. at 1114; see also 15 U.S.C. § 1681(a)(4) 

(explaining that Congress enacted the FCRA “to insure that 

consumer reporting agencies exercise their grave 

responsibilities with fairness, impartiality, and a respect for 

the consumer’s right to privacy”). “Courts have long 

entertained causes of action to vindicate intangible harms 

caused by certain untruthful disclosures about individuals, 

and we respect Congress’s judgment that a similar harm 

would result from inaccurate credit reporting.” Spokeo III, 

867 F.3d at 1115.

At step two, standing is also clear for all class members 

for a number of reasons. First, the nature of the inaccuracy 

is severe. TransUnion inaccurately identified and labeled all 

class members as potential terrorists, drug traffickers, and 

other threats to national security; it did not inaccurately 

report a zip code or a minor discrepancy. As a result of its 

careless procedures for identifying OFAC “matches,” 

TransUnion sent all class members a letter informing them 

that they were considered potential SDNs. This practice ran 

a real risk of causing the uncertainty and stress that Congress 

aimed to prevent in enacting the FCRA. See Drew v. Equifax 

Info. Servs., LLC, 690 F.3d 1100, 1109 (9th Cir. 2012) (“The 

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26 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

FCRA permits ‘recovery for emotional distress and 

humiliation.’” (quoting Guimond v. Trans Union Credit 

Info. Co., 45 F.3d 1329, 1333 (9th Cir. 1995)).

In Spokeo III, we stated that it was “clear” that the 

plaintiff was exposed to a material risk of harm because a 

CRA made inaccurate information about his age, marital 

status, education, and wealth available to third parties. 

867 F.3d at 1117. The risk here was far graver. The OFAC 

labels are the type of information that risks triggering 

significant concern, confusion, and even potential contact 

with a federal intelligence agency. And the record here 

shows this risk is far from hypothetical; indeed, the 

Department of the Treasury informed TransUnion that it 

“continue[d]” to hear from a number of concerned 

individuals who had been inaccurately labeled as OFAC 

matches by TransUnion, and that TransUnion’s practice was 

“creating unnecessary confusion” among affected 

consumers. As Ramirez testified at trial: “[I]if somebody 

tells you you’re on a terrorist list, what are you going to do?”

Second, TransUnion engaged a third-party vendor—

Accuity, Inc.—to develop the software and database 

containing the underlying information for the OFAC alerts. 

As a result, TransUnion and Accuity communicated about 

the database information and OFAC matches. And

TransUnion concedes that OFAC matches were not housed 

by TransUnion; the OFAC list was stored in a separate 

database operated and maintained by Accuity. It is precisely 

for this reason that TransUnion purportedly determined that 

the OFAC alerts were not governed by the FCRA.7 This 

7 In an effort to avoid the FCRA’s reach to its unlawful conduct, 

TransUnion similarly argued in Cortez that the OFAC information was 

maintained and stored by Accuity and, therefore, the information was not 

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 27

type of access to and information sharing with a third party 

certainly compounds the risk of harm to all class members’ 

privacy and reputational interests. The practice created a 

significant risk that third parties other than the affected 

consumers would learn about the inaccurate and highly 

embarrassing OFAC matches.

Finally, TransUnion—one of the nation’s largest 

consumer reporting agencies—made all class members’ 

reports available to potential creditors or employers at a 

moment’s notice, even without the consumers’ knowledge 

in some instances. See 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681b(b)(2)(A) 

(requiring notice to the consumer only when a credit report 

is requested for employment purposes), 1681b(c)(1)(B) 

(allowing credit reports to be furnished before the consumer 

has initiated a transaction in certain circumstances). Credit 

reports exist for the very purpose of being disseminated to 

third parties. Like in Spokeo, where false information was 

made available to third parties on the Internet, TransUnion 

created a risk of harm to all class members by allowing third 

parties to readily access the reports.

Indeed, the 1,853 class members whose reports were 

disseminated to potential creditors have shown even greater 

injuries because we know those third parties, which are in 

part of consumers’ “file[s]” in TransUnion’s control. See Cortez, 

617 F.3d at 711. The Third Circuit unequivocally rejected that 

argument. Id. at 711 (“We do not believe that Congress intended to allow 

credit reporting companies to escape the disclosure requirement in 

§ 1681a(g) by simply contracting with a third party to store and maintain 

information that would otherwise clearly be part of the consumer’s file 

and is included in a credit report.”) (emphasis added); see also id. at 703 

(noting that “TransUnion decided not to include the underlying 

information for its OFAC product in TransUnion’s own database” and 

“decided to use Accuity rather than maintain the information itself.”).

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28 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

the business of denying or approving credit-related requests, 

actually accessed those class members’ reports containing 

the false OFAC alerts. It is difficult to conceive of 

information on a credit report that is more damaging to a 

consumer than a statement that the consumer is potentially 

prohibited from transacting business in the United States 

because the consumer is a criminal or a threat to national 

security. This is not to mention the reputational harm that 

inevitably results from disseminating this information to a 

potential creditor.

As to the remaining 6,332 class members, TransUnion 

argues these class members cannot show any injury because 

their reports were not disseminated to third parties. 

However, this reading of the injury-in-fact requirement is 

too narrow. True, Spokeo III did not “consider whether a 

plaintiff would allege a concrete harm if he alleged only that 

a materially inaccurate report about him was prepared but 

never published.” 867 F.3d at 1116 n.3 (emphases omitted). 

But that situation is not this case. Here, the fact that 

TransUnion made the reports available to numerous 

potential creditors and employers—coupled with the highly 

sensitive and distressing nature of the OFAC alerts disclosed 

to the consumers, the risk of third-party access TransUnion 

created through its dealings with Accuity, and the federal 

government’s awareness of the alerts—is sufficient to show 

a material risk of harm to the concrete interests of all class 

members.8

8 Our dissenting colleague argues that the risk of harm to class 

members other than Ramirez is too speculative. According to the 

dissent, “counsel presented no evidence about the consequences of 

dissemination of the reports for any class member other than Ramirez” 

and could have offered “expert testimony, representative class members, 

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 29

This case is distinguishable from Owner-Operator 

Independent Drivers Ass’n, Inc., et al., v. United States 

Department of Transportation et al., 879 F.3d 339 (D.C. Cir. 

2018), a case relied on heavily by the dissent. There, the 

plaintiffs argued that they were injured “by the mere 

existence of inaccurate information” in a database operated 

by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, but they 

conceded that their information was not at risk of 

dissemination, and the record showed that any risk of future 

disclosure of inaccurate information was “virtually 

eliminated by the Department’s adoption of an interpretive 

rule.” Id. at 343, 346. The court held that, although “it is 

possible that the mere existence of inaccurate information in 

a government database could cause concrete harm 

depending on how that information is to be used,” no such 

harm or risk of future harm existed because the record 

showed there was no risk of disclosure for the absent class 

members. Id. at 347. Here, by contrast, the class’s claim of 

injury does not simply rest on TransUnion’s maintenance of 

and credit agency protocol to fill this gap.” To the extent the dissent 

suggests that there is no evidence about dissemination of any of the class 

members’ reports other than Ramirez’s, that is inaccurate; indeed, as the 

dissent recognizes, the parties stipulated that at least a portion of the class 

had their credit reports requested by a potential credit grantor. As noted 

above, this evidence coupled with other evidence shows that the 

remainder of the class members were subject to a material risk of harm. 

To the extent the dissent suggests that class counsel had to show that all 

class members suffered adverse consequences as a result of 

dissemination of their reports, this is also incorrect. See Spokeo III, 

867 F.3d at 1118 (“[I]n the context of [the] FCRA, [an] intangible injury 

is itself sufficiently concrete. It is of no consequence how likely [the

plaintiff] is to suffer additional concrete harm as well (such as the loss

of a specific job opportunity).”). The dissent offers no support for the 

proposition that counsel was required to introduce expert testimony and 

the other type of evidence that the dissent identifies, precisely because 

none exists.

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30 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

an inaccurate database, with conclusive evidence that there 

is no risk of dissemination.9

We are not faced with a mere technical or procedural 

FCRA violation here. There may be a case where the nature 

of the inaccurate information is such that no risk of harm 

arises until the credit report information of all class members 

9 The other out-of-circuit cases cited by the dissent are similarly 

distinguishable. See Gubala v. Time Warner Cable, Inc., 846 F.3d 909, 

912 (7th Cir. 2017) (“Had [plaintiff] reason to believe the company 

intends to release any of that information or cannot be trusted to retain 

it, he would have grounds for obtaining injunctive relief; but he doesn’t 

even argue that there is a risk of such leakage.”); Braitberg v. Charter 

Commc’ns, Inc., 836 F.3d 925, 930 (8th Cir. 2016) (holding that plaintiff 

had no standing to sue under the Cable Communications Policy Act, 

where he merely alleged that defendant failed to destroy plaintiff’s 

personally identifiable information and retained certain information 

longer than the company should have kept it). This case is also 

distinguishable from Bassett v. ABM Parking Servs., Inc., 883 F.3d 776 

(9th Cir. 2018). Bassett involved a vendor that printed the expiration 

date of the plaintiff’s credit card on the plaintiff’s receipt for a one-time 

transaction, in violation of another FCRA provision. Id. at 777. There 

was no material risk of harm because only the cardholder himself ever 

saw the receipt. Id. at 783. This case involves credit reports, not receipts. 

Credit reports, unlike receipts, exist for the purpose of being 

disseminated to third parties. Moreover, the risk of harm is much more 

direct here. An OFAC alert placed on a credit report runs an almost 

inevitable risk of reputational harm, emotional distress, and/or denial of 

credit or employment if disclosed to a third party—real-world harms. In 

contrast, printing the expiration date of a credit card does not pose such 

inevitable risk; rather, harm would only materialize if a number of other 

contingencies occurred. Bassett also did not involve a third-party vendor 

with access to the inaccurate information or evidence that the 

defendant’s practice created confusion and interaction with an 

intelligence agency among consumers receiving the inaccurate 

information. This case is more analogous to Spokeo III, 867 F.3d 1108, 

and Pedro v. Equifax, Inc., 868 F.3d 1275 (11th Cir. 2017) (holding that 

the plaintiff had standing where credit reporting agency included a debt 

the plaintiff did not owe in the plaintiff’s consumer report).

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 31

is actually disseminated to a third party, but this is not it. On 

the facts of this case, we hold that a real risk of harm arose 

when TransUnion prepared the inaccurate reports and made 

them readily available to third parties, and certainly once 

TransUnion sent the inaccurate information to the class 

members and some class members’ reports were 

disseminated to third parties. This risk of harm was directly 

caused by TransUnion’s failure to follow reasonable 

procedures to ensure maximum possible accuracy of its 

OFAC information, and an award of damages would redress 

the harm caused by the risk.

2. Disclosure and Summary-of-Rights Claims

The class’s second and third claims were that 

TransUnion failed to: (a) disclose that the class members 

had been identified as potential OFAC matches when the 

consumers requested their credit reports, in violation of 

§ 1681g(a); and (b) include a summary-of-rights form when 

TransUnion mailed the separate OFAC Letters, in violation 

of § 1681g(c)(2). Although we must analyze standing on a 

claim-by-claim basis, the injuries produced by these two 

violations are closely intertwined.

Subsections (a) and (c)(2) work together to protect 

consumers’ interests in having access to the information in 

their credit reports upon request and understanding how to 

correct inaccurate information in their credit reports upon 

receipt. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681g(a), (c)(2). These interests can 

only be fulfilled together; one without the other is 

meaningless. And they go to the core of Congress’s purpose 

in enacting the FCRA: “to protect consumers from the 

transmission of inaccurate information about them[.]” 

Guimond, 45 F.3d at 1333; see also Gillespie v. Equifax Info. 

Servs., LLC, 484 F.3d 938, 941 (7th Cir. 2007) (“A primary 

purpose of the statutory scheme provided by the disclosure 

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32 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

in § 1681g(a)(1) is to allow consumers to identify inaccurate 

information in their credit files and correct this information 

via the grievance procedure established under § 1681i. . . .

In writing § 1681g(a)(1), Congress requires disclosure that 

is both ‘clearly and accurately’ made. An accurate 

disclosure of unclear information defeats the consumer’s 

ability to review the credit file, eliminating a consumer 

protection procedure established by Congress under the 

FCRA.”). We have previously acknowledged that the rights 

created by the FCRA to accomplish this purpose “resemble 

other reputational and privacy interests that have long been 

protected in the law.” Spokeo III, 867 F.3d at 1114.

These are not mere procedural or technical requirements. 

They protect consumers’ concrete interest in accessing 

important information about themselves and understanding 

how to dispute inaccurate information before it reaches 

potential creditors. Cf. Syed v. M-I, LLC, 853 F.3d 492, 499–

500 (9th Cir. 2017) (holding that the FCRA provision 

requiring prospective employers to obtain a consumer’s 

consent before obtaining a credit report in a standalone 

document protected a concrete informational and privacy 

interest); Nayab v. Capital One Bank (USA), N.A., 942 F.3d 

480, 490–93 (9th Cir. 2019) (holding that every violation of 

the FCRA provision that prohibits obtaining a credit report 

for an unauthorized purpose violates the consumer’s 

substantive privacy interest, and the consumer has standing 

“regardless whether the credit report is published or 

otherwise used by [a] third-party” and “need not allege any 

further harm” (quoting Eichenberger v. ESPN, Inc., 876 F.3d 

979, 983–84 (9th Cir. 2017))). And although the FCRA’s 

disclosure requirements may seem “procedural” in nature, 

Congress enacted them because they are the only practical 

way to protect consumers’ interests in fair and accurate 

credit reporting. See Spokeo III, 867 F.3d at 1113. 

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 33

Therefore, step one of the Spokeo III framework is satisfied 

for both claims.

At step two, we have no trouble concluding that 

TransUnion’s disclosure violations exposed all class 

members to a material risk of harm to their concrete 

informational interests. TransUnion sent the class members 

a document that purported to be their entire credit report, 

containing no mention of OFAC. This put every class 

member at a risk of real harm: not knowing that they were 

falsely being labeled as terrorists, drug dealers, and threats 

to national security. Then, TransUnion sent the class 

members the separate OFAC Letter without a summary-ofrights form. This conduct posed a serious risk that 

consumers not only would be unaware that this damaging 

label was on their credit reports, but also would be left 

completely in the dark about how they could get the label off 

their reports.10 TransUnion’s conduct therefore exposed 

10 The dissent suggests that, to establish standing for these two 

claims under Section 1681g, every class member must have shown 

evidence of shock or confusion. However, all members of the class were 

falsely labeled by TransUnion as terrorists and national security threats 

and requested a copy of their credit reports, and TransUnion sent the 

confusing mailings to all class members. The mailings that TransUnion 

provided to class members were inherently shocking and confusing, and 

Ramirez, as the class representative, testified to that effect. To require 

further individualized evidence of shock or confusion would defeat the 

purpose of class actions. And while there may exist a case where 

additional evidence would be required to ascertain whether the absent 

class members were indeed shocked or confused, this case is not it. See 

also Fed. Election Comm’n v. Akins, 524 U.S. 11, 21 (1998) (“[T]his 

Court has previously held that a plaintiff suffers an ‘injury in fact’ when 

the plaintiff fails to obtain information which must be publicly disclosed 

pursuant to a statute.”); Pub. Citizen v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 491 U.S. 

440, 449 (1989) (holding that failure to obtain information subject to 

disclosure under Federal Advisory Committee Act was sufficient injury 

to confer standing); Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 374 

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34 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

every class member to a material risk of harm to the core 

interests the FCRA was designed to protect—their interests 

in being able to monitor their credit reports and promptly 

correct inaccuracies.11

C. Standing Conclusion

We agree with TransUnion that every class member 

needs standing to recover damages at the final judgment 

stage. But we also agree with Ramirez and the class that 

every class member has standing on each of the claims in 

this case. We therefore affirm the district court’s denial of 

TransUnion’s motion to decertify the class for lack of 

standing and TransUnion’s post-trial motions based on the 

same grounds.

III. Willfulness

TransUnion next contends that it was entitled to 

judgment as a matter of law or to a new trial because 

Ramirez failed to prove that any of TransUnion’s FCRA 

(1982) (holding that disclosure of false information about housing 

availability was sufficient injury to confer standing under the Fair 

Housing Act, even where plaintiff “may have approached the real estate 

agent fully expecting that he would receive false information, and 

without any intention of buying or renting a home”).

11 We note that in many instances a violation of §§ 1681g(a) or 

1681g(c)(2) might pose no risk of harm. For example, there likely would 

be no risk of harm if the information excluded from the file disclosure 

were an inaccurate zip code rather than an inaccurate OFAC alert. And 

a failure to include a summary of rights might pose no risk of harm if 

there was no inaccurate information in the consumer’s file to begin with.

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 35

violations were willful.

12 TransUnion argues that its conduct 

complied with the statute as a matter of law, or, in the 

alternative, that its conduct was based on reasonable but 

mistaken interpretations of the statute.13 The district court 

rejected these arguments and found that substantial evidence 

supported the jury’s findings.

We review the denial of a motion for judgment as a 

matter of law de novo, Josephs v. Pac. Bell, 443 F.3d 1050, 

1062 (9th Cir. 2006), and we review the denial of a motion 

for a new trial for abuse of discretion, Guy v. City of San 

Diego, 608 F.3d 582, 585 (9th Cir. 2010). We affirm the 

district court.

Judgment as a matter of law is appropriate only when the 

evidence—viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party—permits a reasonable jury to reach only one 

conclusion, and that conclusion is contrary to the jury’s 

verdict. Martin v. Cal. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, 560 F.3d 

1042, 1046 (9th Cir. 2009). Similarly, a new trial is 

appropriate only if “the verdict is against the clear weight of 

the evidence[.]” Id.

An FCRA violation is willful when a CRA either 

knowingly violates the statute or recklessly disregards its 

requirements. Safeco Ins. Co. of Am. v. Burr, 551 U.S. 47, 

56–57 (2007). A CRA recklessly disregards the statute if it 

adopts an objectively unreasonable interpretation that runs 

12 Ramirez and the class pursued only a willfulness theory for each 

of their three claims, presumably because statutory and punitive damages 

are available for willful, but not negligent, FCRA violations. See

15 U.S.C. §§ 1681n, 1681o.

13 TransUnion does not challenge the verdict form or jury 

instructions, which closely tracked the text of the FCRA.

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36 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

“a risk of violating the law substantially greater than the risk 

associated with a reading that [is] merely careless.” Id. at 

69. When “conduct is so patently violative” of the FCRA 

that any reasonable person would know without guidance 

that its interpretation was erroneous, “closely analogous preexisting” guidance from the courts is unnecessary. Syed, 

853 F.3d at 504 (quoting Boyd v. Benton Cty., 374 F.3d 773, 

781 (9th Cir. 2004)).

A. Reasonable Procedures Claim

Plaintiffs presented evidence that—despite being told in 

2010 by another circuit court that OFAC alerts were covered 

by the FCRA and subject to § 1681e(b)’s reasonable 

procedures requirement—TransUnion continued to utilize 

name-only searches to produce OFAC “matches.” Most 

notably, the Third Circuit specifically reprimanded 

TransUnion for failing to use an additional identifier such as 

date of birth to verify the accuracy of OFAC matches. See 

Cortez, 617 F.3d at 723 (“Given the severe potential 

consequences of [associating a consumer with an SDN, 

TransUnion’s] failure to take the utmost care in ensuring the 

information’s accuracy—at the very least, comparing birth 

dates when they are available—is reprehensible.”). 

Nonetheless, TransUnion continued to use only first and last 

names to identify OFAC matches until 2013. A reasonable 

jury could conclude that this was objectively unreasonable 

and ran a risk of error substantially greater than a merely 

careless interpretation. See Safeco Ins. Co. of Am., 551 U.S. 

at 70 (noting that a finding of recklessness is more 

appropriate when the defendant had “guidance from the 

courts of appeals . . . that might have warned it away from 

the view it took”).

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 37

B. Disclosure Claim

Section 1681g(a) required TransUnion to “clearly and 

accurately” disclose “[a]ll information in the consumer’s 

file” when the class members requested their reports. 

15 U.S.C. § 1681g(a)(1). Plaintiffs presented evidence that 

TransUnion adopted a policy of not including OFAC 

information on the credit reports it sent to consumers who 

requested their files, even though TransUnion included the 

OFAC information on the credit reports it sent to third 

parties regarding those same consumers. Instead, 

TransUnion sent the class members vague “courtesy” letters 

informing them that their names were “considered a 

potential match” to names on the OFAC list. Nowhere did 

the OFAC Letter disclose that the version of the class 

members’ credit reports sent to third parties contained an 

OFAC alert on the first page.

TransUnion’s interpretation of § 1681g(a) as allowing 

this conduct is “unambiguously foreclose[d]” by the 

language of the statute itself, Syed, 853 F.3d at 505, which 

required TransUnion to clearly and accurately disclose all

information in the consumers’ reports. 15 U.S.C. 

§ 1681g(a)(1). TransUnion did not disclose all information. 

It left out the OFAC alerts. TransUnion argues that it did not 

omit the OFAC alerts from the reports, but simply mailed the 

OFAC alerts in separate envelopes. This contention is belied 

by the record. The reports themselves had a clearly indicated 

beginning and end, and the OFAC Letters explicitly stated 

that they were “separate[]” from the reports. And even if the 

OFAC Letters did sufficiently disclose that the OFAC alerts 

were part of the consumers’ reports (which they did not), no 

reasonable person could conclude that the OFAC Letters 

were a clear and accurate method of disclosure. See Syed, 

853 F.3d at 504–06.

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38 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

Moreover, the jury also heard evidence that the Third 

Circuit had told TransUnion in 2010 that it could not 

continue to treat OFAC information as somehow separate 

from the other information included on consumer reports. 

Accordingly, TransUnion had “guidance from the courts of 

appeals” suggesting that its interpretation was erroneous. 

Safeco Ins. Co. of Am., 551 U.S. at 70.

In sum, a reasonable jury could find that TransUnion was 

objectively unreasonable and ran a risk of error substantially 

greater than mere carelessness when it excluded arguably the 

most important piece of information in the class members’ 

files—the OFAC alerts—from the reports it sent to them and 

instead sent this information in a separate, confusing 

“courtesy” letter.

C. Summary-of-Rights Claim

Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681g(c)(2), TransUnion was 

required to provide a summary of rights “with each written 

disclosure” it sent to consumers pursuant to a consumer file 

request. TransUnion argues that it was reasonable to send 

the summary of rights with the first mailing, the consumer 

report, and assume that the class members would understand 

that the summary of rights also applied to the second 

mailing, the OFAC Letter. But as explained above, the two 

mailings clearly indicated that they were separate, rather 

than components of one disclosure. And the language of the 

statute is clear: A summary of rights must be sent with each

written disclosure. Therefore, there was sufficient evidence 

to find a willful violation of § 1681g(c)(2) because any 

reasonable CRA would have known that TransUnion’s 

interpretation was in error. See Syed, 853 F.3d at 504–06.

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 39

D. Willfulness Conclusion

Had this case been filed before the Third Circuit’s 

decision in Cortez, we might have been faced with a difficult 

question as to willfulness. But in light of Cortez, we have 

no difficulty upholding the verdict. TransUnion was 

provided with much of the guidance it needed to interpret its 

obligations under the FCRA with respect to OFAC alerts in 

2010 when Cortez was decided. 617 F.3d at 695. Despite 

this warning, TransUnion continued to use problematic 

matching technology and to treat OFAC information as 

separate from other types of information on consumer 

reports. In doing so, it ran an unjustifiably high risk of error. 

The jury’s verdict is consistent with the law and supported 

by substantial evidence. Accordingly, we affirm the district 

court’s denial of TransUnion’s motion for judgment as a 

matter of law or a new trial. See Harper v. City of Los 

Angeles, 533 F.3d 1010, 1021 (9th Cir. 2008) (“A jury’s 

verdict must be upheld if it is supported by substantial 

evidence, which is evidence adequate to support the jury’s 

conclusion, even if it is also possible to draw a contrary 

conclusion.” (quoting Pavao v. Pagay, 307 F.3d 915, 918 

(9th Cir. 2002))).

IV. Rule 23

TransUnion next contends that the district court should 

not have certified the class in this case because Ramirez’s 

claims were not typical of the class’s claims, as required by 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)(3). We review the 

district court’s certification of a class action for abuse of 

discretion. Wolin v. Jaguar Land Rover N. Am., LLC, 

617 F.3d 1168, 1171 (9th Cir. 2010). Our review is limited 

to “whether the district court correctly selected and applied 

Rule 23’s criteria.” Parra v. Bashas’, Inc., 536 F.3d 975, 

977 (9th Cir. 2008).

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40 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

TransUnion argues that Ramirez was not typical of the 

class because his injuries were more severe than the injuries 

suffered by the rest of the class. Ramirez’s credit report with 

the false OFAC alert was sent to a third party; Ramirez’s 

alert stated that he was a match instead of a potential match; 

Ramirez was denied credit because of the alert; he canceled 

a vacation because of the alert; and he spent significant time 

and energy trying to remove the alert, including hiring a 

lawyer. In contrast, only a quarter of the other class 

members had their credit reports sent to a third party during 

the class period, and there was no evidence regarding 

whether other class members had experiences similar to 

Ramirez’s as a result of the alerts.

But these differences do not defeat typicality. The 

typicality inquiry focuses on “the nature of the claim . . . of 

the class representative, and not . . . the specific facts from 

which it arose.” Ellis v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 657 F.3d 

970, 984 (9th Cir. 2011) (quoting Hanon v. Dataproducts 

Corp., 976 F.2d 497, 508 (9th Cir. 1992)). Even if 

Ramirez’s injuries were slightly more severe than some class 

members’ injuries, Ramirez’s injuries still arose “from the 

same event or practice or course of conduct that [gave] rise 

to the claims of other class members and [his claims were] 

based on the same legal theory.” Lacy v. Cook Cty., Ill., 

897 F.3d 847, 866 (7th Cir. 2018) (quoting Rosario v. 

Livaditis, 963 F.2d 1013, 1018 (7th Cir. 1992)); see also 

Parsons v. Ryan, 754 F.3d 657, 685 (9th Cir. 2014) (“We do 

not insist that the named plaintiffs’ injuries be identical with 

those of the other class members, only that the unnamed 

class members have injuries similar to those of the named 

plaintiffs and that the injuries result from the same, injurious 

course of conduct.” (quoting Armstrong v. Davis, 275 F.3d 

849, 869 (9th Cir. 2001))).

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 41

Ramirez’s injuries were not so unique, unusual, or severe 

to make him an atypical representative of the class. A class 

representative satisfies typicality when his “personal 

narrative is somewhat more colorful” than other class 

members’ experiences, as long as his claim “falls within the 

common contours of” the class-wide theory of liability. 

Torres, 835 F.3d at 1142; see also Ellis, 657 F.3d at 985 n.9 

(“Differing factual scenarios resulting in a claim of the same 

nature as other class members does not defeat typicality.”). 

Nor were the unique aspects of Ramirez’s claims significant 

to the point that they “threaten[ed] to become the focus of 

the litigation[.]” Torres, 835 F.3d at 1142 (quoting Hanon, 

976 F.2d at 508). Accordingly, the district court did not 

abuse its discretion in certifying (and refusing to decertify) 

the class.14

14 The dissent suggests that “the district court made compounding 

errors regarding class certification and standing” at earlier stages of the 

case. Indeed, TransUnion moved to decertify the class nearly a year 

before trial commenced, primarily on the basis that individualized issues 

of Article III standing predominated. The district court properly denied 

the motion, however, because only the class representative must show 

standing at the class certification stage. See Melendres, 784 F.3d 

at 1262; see also Vaquero v. Ashley Furniture Indus., Inc., 824 F.3d 

1150, 1155 (9th Cir. 2016) (“[T]he need for individual damages 

calculations does not, alone, defeat class certification.”). More 

importantly, the differences between Ramirez’s injuries and those of 

other class members are a matter of degree, not standing. In fact, the 

district court attempted to distinguish between the class members’ 

degrees of injury at the final pretrial conference. Specifically, the district 

court suggested to TransUnion that it could object at the charging 

conference to the aggregation of damages in the verdict form, such that 

if the jury found TransUnion liable, it could award damages proportional 

to the number of class members who suffered certain injuries, such as 

disclosure of their consumer reports to third parties. But TransUnion did 

not object to the verdict form at the charging conference, allowing the 

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42 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

V. Damages

Finally, TransUnion argues that the jury’s statutory and 

punitive damages awards were grossly excessive in violation 

of the U.S. Constitution. We review de novo the 

constitutionality of punitive damages, Cooper Indus. v. 

Leatherman Tool Grp., Inc., 532 U.S. 424, 436 (2001); State 

Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408, 418 

(2003), and we review a district court’s denial of a motion 

for a new trial on damages for abuse of discretion, Guy, 

608 F.3d at 585. We agree with the district court that there 

is no basis to disturb the statutory damages award, but we 

conclude that the punitive damages were unconstitutionally 

excessive.

A. Statutory Damages

Under the FCRA, a plaintiff is entitled to statutory 

damages between $100 and $1,000 for any willful violation. 

15 U.S.C. § 1681n(a)(1)(A). Here, the jury awarded 

$984.22 per class member for a total of about $8 million 

class-wide. TransUnion argues that this amount violates due 

process because it is “so severe and oppressive as to be 

wholly disproportioned to the offense and obviously 

unreasonable.” United States v. Citrin, 972 F.2d 1044, 1051 

(9th Cir. 1992) (quoting St. Louis, I.M. & S. Ry. Co. v. 

Williams, 251 U.S. 63, 67 (1919)).15

court to instruct the jury to award the same amount of damages to all 

class members—regardless of their degree of injury.

15 TransUnion also argued below for remittitur on the theory that the 

damages were “clearly not supported by the evidence, or only based on 

speculation or guesswork.” Guy, 608 F.3d at 585 (internal quotation 

marks and citation omitted).

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 43

TransUnion’s argument is somewhat of a moving target, 

but it relies primarily on this Court’s decision in Six (6) 

Mexican Workers v. Arizona Citrus Growers, 904 F.2d 1301 

(9th Cir. 1990). There, we reduced a district court’s award 

of statutory damages to class members in an action under the 

Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act (“FLCRA”). Id. 

at 1303, 1312. We explained that the “individual awards 

exceeded what was necessary to compensate any potential 

injury from the violations,” id. at 1309, and the “aggregate 

amount of [the] award was unprecedented,” id. at 1309–10.

Six (6) Mexican Workers is distinguishable from this 

case for a number of reasons. First, it involved a district 

court’s determination of damages, which we reviewed for 

abuse of discretion—rather than a jury’s determination, to 

which we owe “substantial deference.” Del Monte Dunes at 

Monterey, Ltd. v. City of Monterey, 95 F.3d 1422, 1435 (9th 

Cir. 1996), aff’d, 526 U.S. 687 (1999). Second, it involved 

analysis that was specific to the now-repealed FLCRA, and 

it contained no discussion of constitutional due process. 

Third, it involved an award of damages within the statutory 

range for each FLCRA violation, rather than one award 

within the statutory range for all violations combined.

In any event, the jury’s award—which falls within the 

statutory range—is proportionate to TransUnion’s offenses 

and reasonable in light of the evidence. Indeed, if we were 

to envision a case that might warrant the high end of the 

statutory-damages range, we might envision something like 

this case. TransUnion recklessly labeled thousands of 

consumers as potential terrorists and other sanctioned 

individuals without taking even basic steps to verify the 

accuracy of these labels. And then it hid the ball from these 

consumers when they asked for their files and withheld 

important information about their right to dispute the labels.

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44 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

Congress provided for a set range of damages for FCRA 

violations because the “actual harm that a willful violation 

of [the FCRA] will inflict on a consumer will often be small 

or difficult to prove.” Bateman v. Am. Multi-Cinema, Inc., 

623 F.3d 708, 718 (9th Cir. 2010). We need not determine 

whether courts have the authority to disturb a jury’s 

statutory-damages award when it falls within Congress’s 

prescribed range because in this case the jury’s award is 

clearly proportionate to the offense and consistent with the 

evidence.16

B. Punitive Damages

The FCRA also permits an award of punitive damages in 

an amount “as the court may allow[.]” 15 U.S.C. 

§ 1681n(a)(2). The jury awarded each class member 

$6,353.08 in punitive damages for a class-wide total of about 

$52 million. TransUnion argues that this award is 

constitutionally infirm because: (1) it is duplicative, (2) it 

punishes for injuries to third parties not involved in this suit, 

and (3) it is excessive in violation of due process.

TransUnion’s first argument is that the statutory 

damages were sufficient to accomplish deterrence, so the 

punitive damages, which also aim to deter, were duplicative. 

But the statute explicitly allows for both types of damages: 

statutory damages to compensate plaintiffs for their 

intangible injuries that are difficult to quantify, and punitive 

damages to punish and deter willful FCRA violations. 

TransUnion does not challenge the jury instructions 

regarding damages, nor does TransUnion point to anything 

16 TransUnion does not seriously argue that the aggregate award—

representing about a half percent of TransUnion’s total net worth—is 

“oppressive.” See Citrin, 972 F.2d at 1051.

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 45

specific in the record suggesting that the jury might have 

misunderstood the distinct purposes of statutory and punitive 

damages. We will not disturb the jury’s award on this basis.

TransUnion next argues that the jury awarded punitive 

damages because it wanted to punish TransUnion for 

injuring nonparties, which violates due process. See Philip 

Morris USA v. Williams, 549 U.S. 346, 353–55 (2007). But 

“[a] jury may consider evidence of actual harm to nonparties 

as part of its reprehensibility determination,” even though it 

“may not ‘use a punitive damages verdict to punish a 

defendant directly’” for injury inflicted upon non-parties. 

White v. Ford Motor Co., 500 F.3d 963, 972 (9th Cir. 2007) 

(quoting Williams, 549 U.S. at 355). “Where there is a 

significant risk that jurors will misapprehend the distinction, 

the court must upon request protect against that risk by 

‘avoid[ing] procedure that unnecessarily deprives juries of 

proper legal guidance.’” Id.

To begin with, TransUnion does not challenge, or even 

discuss, the jury instructions regarding punitive damages. 

Nor did TransUnion object to the instructions or class 

counsel’s arguments regarding punitive damages below. 

Our review of the record reflects nothing that would lend 

support to TransUnion’s argument beyond very limited 

references to nonparties in counsel’s arguments. We reject 

this challenge.

Finally, TransUnion argues that $6,353.08 in punitive 

damages per class member is “grossly excessive” in 

violation of constitutional due process. State Farm, 538 U.S. 

at 416. In reviewing the constitutionality of punitive 

damages, we consider three guideposts: “(1) the degree of 

reprehensibility of the defendant’s misconduct; (2) the 

disparity between the actual or potential harm suffered by 

the plaintiff and the punitive damages award; and (3) the 

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46 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

difference between the punitive damages awarded by the 

jury and the civil penalties authorized or imposed in 

comparable cases.” Id. at 418 (citing BMW of N. Am., Inc. 

v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 575 (1996)).

1. Reprehensibility

The reprehensibility of TransUnion’s conduct is the most 

important guidepost. State Farm, 538 U.S. at 419. We must 

consider whether: 

the harm caused was physical as opposed to 

economic; the tortious conduct evinced an 

indifference to or a reckless disregard of the 

health or safety of others; the target of the 

conduct had financial vulnerability; the 

conduct involved repeated actions or was an 

isolated incident; and the harm was the result 

of intentional malice, trickery, or deceit, or 

mere accident.

Id.

Here, there was no physical harm, and TransUnion’s 

conduct did not evince an indifference to health or safety. 

However, “the gravity of harm that could result from 

[TransUnion’s matching] of [a consumer] with an individual 

on a ‘terrorist’ list cannot be over stated.” Cortez, 617 F.3d 

at 723. The class members were also financially vulnerable 

in the sense that their ability to obtain credit depended on the 

care that TransUnion—a billion-dollar company—took in 

gathering data about them.

But most importantly, TransUnion’s misconduct was 

repeated and willful. TransUnion used name-only OFAC 

searches for more than a decade, resulting in thousands of 

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 47

false positives and not a single known actual match 

identified. TransUnion’s conduct probably was not “the 

result of intentional malice, trickery, or deceit,” but it was 

far from “mere accident.” State Farm, 538 U.S. at 419. 

TransUnion began receiving consumer complaints regarding 

false OFAC alerts in 2006; a jury found it liable for hundreds 

of thousands of dollars for a false OFAC alert in 2007; and 

the Third Circuit told TransUnion in 2010 that false OFAC 

alerts were a serious matter and that its “cavalier[]” reliance 

on a name-only screening software and treatment of OFAC 

information as exempt from the FCRA were inexcusable. 

Cortez, 617 F.3d at 710. TransUnion’s conduct 

demonstrated a disregard for the gravity of an OFAC match 

and what a false positive would mean, emotionally and 

practically, for each consumer.

2. Ratio

There is no bright-line rule about the maximum ratio due 

process permits between the harm suffered by the plaintiff 

(i.e., the compensatory damages) and the punitive damages. 

State Farm, 538 U.S. at 425. However, the Supreme Court 

has noted that punitive “awards exceeding a single-digit 

ratio” will rarely satisfy due process, and punitive awards 

exceeding four times the amount of compensatory damages 

“might be close to the line of constitutional impropriety.” Id. 

A ratio higher than 4 to 1 may be upheld where “a 

particularly egregious act has resulted in only a small 

amount of economic damages.” Id. (quoting Gore, 517 U.S. 

at 582). But “[w]hen compensatory damages are 

substantial,” a ratio lower than 4 to 1 may be the limit. Id.

In this case, the ratio between the punitive and statutory 

awards is 6.45 to 1. Although TransUnion’s conduct was 

egregious for the reasons explained above, the jury’s 

compensatory award was substantial—near the high end of 

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48 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

the statutory range. Moreover, when viewed in the 

aggregate, $8 million in statutory damages is quite 

substantial. Under the circumstances of this case, we 

conclude that a ratio of 4 to 1 is the most the Constitution 

permits.

3. Comparable Civil Penalties

We agree with our sister circuits that consideration of 

civil penalties is not useful in the FCRA context because 

there is no “truly comparable” civil penalty to an FCRA 

punitive-damages award. Cortez, 617 F.3d at 724; see

Saunders v. Branch Banking & Tr. Co. of Va., 526 F.3d 142, 

152 (4th Cir. 2008); Bach v. First Union Nat. Bank, 486 F.3d 

150, 154 n.1 (6th Cir. 2007). Therefore, we do not consider 

this factor.

4. Punitive-Damages Conclusion

We conclude that the punitive-damages award was 

constitutionally excessive in light of the Gore guideposts 

because, although TransUnion’s conduct was reprehensible, 

it was not so egregious as to justify a punitive award of more 

than six times an already substantial compensatory award.

“When a punitive damage award exceeds the 

constitutional maximum, we decide on a case-by-case basis 

whether to remand for a new trial or simply to order a 

remittitur.” Southern Union Co. v. Irvin, 563 F.3d 788, 792 

n.4 (9th Cir. 2009). This litigation has already spanned a 

number of years, and we do not think a new trial would bring 

to light any new evidence that might permit a ratio higher 

than 4 to 1. We therefore reverse the district court’s 

judgment regarding punitive damages, vacate the punitive 

damages award, and remand with instructions to reduce the 

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 49

punitive damages to $3,936.88 per class member, which 

represents four times the statutory damages.

VI. Conclusion

We hold that every member of a class action certified 

under Rule 23 must demonstrate Article III standing at the 

final stage of a money damages suit when class members are 

to be awarded individual monetary damages. And we hold 

that, on this record, every class member had standing 

because TransUnion’s reckless handling of OFAC 

information exposed every class member to a real risk of 

harm to their concrete privacy, reputational, and 

informational interests protected by the FCRA. We also 

uphold the jury’s verdict finding willful violations of 

sections 1681e(b), 1681g(a)(1), and 1681g(c)(2) of the 

FCRA because the verdict was supported by substantial 

evidence. We conclude that the jury’s award of statutory 

damages near the high end of the range was clearly justified.

With respect to punitive damages, we agree with the 

Third Circuit that it is unsurprising that a jury was 

“incensed” by TransUnion’s flippant placement of terrorist 

alerts on consumer credit reports and its consistent refusal to 

take responsibility or acknowledge the harm it has caused. 

Indeed, even on appeal, TransUnion continues to take the 

position that labeling someone a terrorist causes them no 

harm. Nonetheless, despite the reprehensibility of 

TransUnion’s conduct, we are compelled to reduce the 

punitive damages in this case because the jury’s award is 

unconstitutionally excessive. We conclude that a ratio of 

4 to 1 between the statutory and punitive damages is the 

most the Constitution permits on this record. We vacate the 

punitive damages and remand for a reduction, but otherwise 

affirm the district court.

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50 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

REVERSED and VACATED as to the amount of 

punitive damages; REMANDED with instructions to reduce 

the punitive damages to $3,936.88 per class member; 

AFFIRMED in all other respects. The parties shall bear 

their own costs on appeal.

McKEOWN, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and 

dissenting in part:

A class action jury trial is a high-stakes affair more 

common in cinema than an actual courtroom. But no 

screenwriter would feature the complex issue raised in this 

appeal: a standing infirmity during a time of flux in the 

doctrine. In its otherwise deft handling of a difficult case, 

the district court made compounding errors regarding class 

certification and standing, leading to a jury verdict of nearly 

$60 million based on the unenviable experience of a single, 

atypical class representative. The bottom line is that for 

judgment at trial, every member of the class must have 

Article III standing. Conjecture based on an 

unrepresentative plaintiff does not meet the constitutional 

minimum.

The majority paints a dramatic story of corporate 

indifference. And, indeed, Sergio Ramirez was the victim of 

unforgivable circumstances at the hands of TransUnion. But 

his misfortune alone cannot justify damages for the entire 

class. At trial each member of the class must establish 

standing. Except for a limited number of class members 

whose credit report was disclosed to third parties, there was 

no evidence of any harm or damages to remaining class 

members. Instead, the trial focused on Ramirez and his 

unique circumstances. Missing at trial was evidence related 

to other members of the class, a deficiency that cannot be 

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cured by speculation. Unfortunately, neither the district 

court nor the parties followed this dictate.

Let me first note my points of agreement with the 

majority. It is well established that Article III and the Rules 

Enabling Act require all members of a damages class to have 

standing at trial, so here the 1,853 class members whose 

inaccurate information was disclosed to a third party had 

standing to assert a reasonable procedures claim. I also 

agree that the punitive damages award was impermissibly 

excessive. In my view, however, no one but Ramirez and 

the class members whose information was disclosed to a 

third party had standing to assert a reasonable procedures 

claim, and only Ramirez had standing to bring the disclosure 

and summary of rights claims. I therefore respectfully 

dissent in part.

I. Class Certification

The standing issues at trial germinated from seeds sown 

during class certification. The only asserted uniform classwide experience was the existence of TransUnion’s internal 

terrorist watch list alerts and the mailing of separate letters—

faint allegations that strain Rule 23’s typicality 

requirements. Absent class members simply rode Ramirez’s 

coattails, while his stark atypicality as the lone class 

representative ensured that he would “‘become the focus of 

the litigation.’” Hanon v. Dataproducts Corp., 976 F.2d 

497, 508 (9th Cir. 1992) (citation omitted); see also 

Melendres v. Arpaio, 784 F.3d 1254, 1263 (9th Cir. 2015) 

(quoting Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244, 265 (2003) 

(named plaintiffs were adequate class representatives 

because their “claims do not ‘implicate a significantly 

different set of concerns’ than the unnamed plaintiffs' 

claims”). When it came time for trial, the certification error 

was only compounded.

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52 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

II. Ramirez and the Class

The majority declares that “each member of a class 

certified under Rule 23 must satisfy the bare minimum of 

Article III standing at the final-judgment stage of a class 

action in order to recover monetary damages in federal 

court.” This principle, though, does not square with what 

happened at the trial, which opened with class counsel telling 

jurors that they would learn “the story of Mr. Ramirez.” And 

indeed they did. Jurors learned that a car dealership refused 

to grant Ramirez financing because his credit report flagged 

him as a “match” to a terrorist watch list, and that he was 

frightened, humiliated, and confused. He contacted 

TransUnion and was informed he was not on the watch list, 

but then received two separate mailings: one purporting to 

be his full credit report and making no mention of the 

terrorist watch list, and a subsequent letter informing 

Ramirez that he was a potential match for the terrorist watch 

list. The second letter omitted the summary of FCRA rights 

and grievance instructions contained in the first mailing. 

After closely reviewing both letters, Ramirez was at a loss, 

and cancelled a planned family vacation to Mexico. Only 

after consulting with an attorney and the Treasury 

Department did he finally compel TransUnion to remove his 

watch list designation.

The story of the absent class members, in contrast, went 

largely untold. The jury learned class members requested a 

credit report from TransUnion and were sent separate 

mailings. The trial featured no evidence that absent class 

members received, opened, or read the mailings, nor that 

they were confused, distressed, or relied on the information 

in any way. There was no evidence that absent class 

members were denied credit, or expended any time or energy 

attempting to clear their name. It’s possible that other class 

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RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION 53

members—perhaps many others—had these experiences. 

But the hallmark of the trial was the absence of evidence 

about absent class members, or any evidence that they were 

in the same boat as Ramirez. The jury was left to assume 

that the absent class members suffered the same injury. But 

such conjecture is insufficient to confer Article III standing.

III. Claims

A. Reasonable Procedures Claim

The parties stipulated at trial that, like Ramirez, a quarter 

of the class had their inaccurate credit reports sent to a third 

party, affording them clear standing for the claim that 

TransUnion failed to follow reasonable procedures to assure 

maximum accuracy on their credit reports. For the 

overwhelming majority of the class, though, we face the 

open question of whether there is “concrete harm” when “a 

materially inaccurate report . . . was prepared but never 

published” to a third party. Robins v. Spokeo, Inc., 867 F.3d 

1108, 1116 & n.3 (9th Cir. 2017) (“Spokeo III”) (emphasis 

in original). On this record, there is not. Class members do 

not argue that they have an interest “that [has] long been 

protected in the law.” Id. at 1114. And although 

“publication of defamatory information . . . has long 

provided the basis for a lawsuit,” Pedro v. Equifax, Inc., 

868 F.3d 1275, 1280 (11th Cir. 2017), there is no common 

law analogue for a suit “absent dissemination,” OwnerOperator Indep. Drivers Ass’n, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Transp., 

879 F.3d 339, 344–45 (D.C. Cir. 2018).

Nor is there any indication that Congress sought to 

protect a consumer’s interest in an error-free credit database 

itself. Rather, Congress’s concern was with the 

“dissemination of inaccurate information, not its mere 

existence in the . . . database.” Owner-Operator, 879 F.3d 

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54 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

at 45 (emphasis added). As we have recognized, Congress 

enacted the reasonable procedures requirements “‘to protect 

consumers from the transmission of inaccurate information 

about them.’” Spokeo III, 867 F.3d at 1113 (quoting 

Guimond v. TransUnion, 45 F.3d 1329, 1333 (9th Cir. 

1995)). Any “concrete interest in accurate credit reporting” 

is implicated only upon disclosure to a third party. See 

Spokeo III, 867 F.3d at 1115. Nothing in the text, structure, 

or history of FCRA suggests that Congress sought to afford 

consumers with plenary police powers over the information 

contained in credit reporting agencies’ internal databases, 

and “the mere existence of inaccurate database information 

is not sufficient to confer Article III standing.” OwnerOperator, 879 F.3d at 345.

The majority does not dispute these points. Instead, it

holds that TransUnion’s inaccurate reports, once created and 

stored, were “made available,” which—combined with the 

“distressing nature” of TransUnion’s mailings to consumers 

and the “risk of third-party access” constituted a “material 

risk” of harm to the entire class. See Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 

136 S. Ct. 1540, 1550 (2016), as revised (May 24, 2016) 

(“Spokeo II”). This statement makes for a good closing 

argument, but counsel presented no evidence about the 

consequences of dissemination of the reports for any class 

member other than Ramirez. The majority observes that a 

credit report may be divulged “to potential creditors or 

employers at a moment’s notice.” This possibility, however, 

does not amount to a material risk—one of Spokeo II’s core 

teachings is that Article III requires a discernable, nonconjectural likelihood of harm. Without doubt, counsel 

could have offered expert testimony, representative class 

members, and credit agency protocol to fill this gap. But 

none was proffered. This does not mean that evidence must 

be proffered as to each class member, and I reiterate that the 

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1,853 individuals whose report was disclosed to third parties 

have standing. Rather, Ramirez was required to present 

something other than his own story; not only was he not 

typical of the class, but without additional testimony, harm 

as to the bulk of the class was conjectural. In analogous 

circumstances, other circuits have determined that similar 

chains of events are too speculative and attenuated to 

establish a “material risk of harm.” See Owner-Operator, 

879 F.3d at 347 (determining “prospect of future injury” was 

purely speculative when “nothing in the record indicates that 

anyone has recently accessed or used the information at 

issue”); Gubala v. Time Warner Cable, Inc., 846 F.3d 909, 

910–11 (7th Cir. 2017) (concluding mere retention of 

customer data, in violation of a federal statute but without 

dissemination to a third party, did not confer standing);

Braitberg v. Charter Commc’ns, Inc., 836 F.3d 925, 930–31 

(8th Cir. 2016) (same). Because no evidence in the record 

establishes a serious likelihood of disclosure, we cannot 

simply presume a material risk of concrete harm, and threequarters of the class lacks standing for the reasonable 

procedures claim.

B. Disclosure and Summary of Rights Claims

The lack of evidence of concrete harm to absent class 

members is even more stark when considering the disclosure 

and summary of rights claims. The first alleges that 

TransUnion willfully failed to disclose class members’ full 

credit reports by not including the OFAC information when 

sending consumers’ credit files—that is to say, by sending 

the information in a separate mailing. The second claim 

relates to TransUnion’s failure to include a summary of 

rights in the envelope containing the OFAC letter.

Notably, TransUnion sent the credit reports and OFAC 

alerts contemporaneously. Omitting the OFAC information 

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56 RAMIREZ V. TRANSUNION

from the credit summary and instead sending it “within 

hours,” may be a technical violation of FCRA’s disclosure 

requirement, and the “shock,” that Ramirez testified he felt 

upon receiving the separate OFAC communication is 

sufficient to confer Article III standing upon him. There was 

no evidence, however, that a single other class member so 

much as opened the dual mailings, or that anyone other than 

Ramirez was surprised to receive them.

Similarly, TransUnion’s OFAC letter failed to inform 

him how to dispute being a potential watch list match, an 

omission that confused Ramirez, who plainly has standing to 

bring a summary of rights claim. But whether any other 

absent class member was confused, suffered the adverse 

consequences that befell Ramirez, or even opened the letter, 

is pure conjecture. For the absent class members, evidence 

of disclosure and summary of rights violations were only “a 

bare procedural violation, divorced from any concrete 

harm,” Spokeo II, 136 S. Ct. at 1549, and no common law 

analogue or clear congressional directive suggests that 

Article III requirements are satisfied in the face of such an 

absence of evidence.

IV. Conclusion

Trial attorneys understand the importance of a narrative, 

and “the story of Mr. Ramirez” has all the compelling 

elements: a sympathetic protagonist, a corporate antihero, 

and thousands of unseen victims. The purpose of a trial, 

however, is to evaluate evidence, not produce a satisfying 

plot. Although the strategy behind presenting only 

Ramirez’s unusually sympathetic case to the jury was selfevident, the nature of his claims likely bore little 

resemblance to experiences of the absent class members. Or 

perhaps they did. But based on the evidence at trial, it is 

impossible to know.

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At trial, class members lacking a constitutionally 

cognizable injury should not have been permitted to recover 

damages, yet TransUnion now owes 8,185 class members 

tens of millions of dollars based on the unfortunate and 

unrepresentative experience of a single plaintiff. 

TransUnion’s procedural violations may well have harmed 

some class members, but we are limited to the evidence in 

the record—evidence that fails to establish a concrete injuryin-fact for most class members on most claims. Speculation 

can complete a story, but it cannot cure this infirmity. I 

respectfully dissent in part.

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