Opinion ID: 435787
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: cbi membership

Text: 16 Stewart maintains that as a result of CBI's inaccurate report that he had filed a wage earner plan, he was denied membership in CBI itself. The district court denied Stewart recovery on three alternative grounds: First [s]ince plaintiff has no claim ... for the distribution of inaccurate information to potential creditors, it follows that [he] has no cause of action against defendant for using the same information to deny [CBI membership]. Memorandum Opinion, slip op. at 15. Second there simply is no cause of action under the FCRA to compel defendant to ... provid[e] plaintiff with its credit reporting service. Id. Third, plaintiff has failed to rebut defendant's affidavit that plaintiff's credit record did not play any role in the denial of use of credit reporting service. Id. In light of our holding on Stewart's claim-in-chief, we do not believe any of these three reasons justifies a grant of summary judgment for CBI. 17 The first two reasons can be dealt with in short order. Since we have vacated the district court's dismissal of Stewart's inaccuracy claim, that dismissal can no longer justify summary judgment on the CBI membership issue. And, although the FCRA provides no separate cause of action for refusal to engage in business with Stewart, if that refusal was prompted by an inaccurate entry in Stewart's credit file due to CBI's failure to follow reasonable procedures in preparing credit reports, it is compensable as part of actual damages resulting from CBI's negligent violation of the Act. 18 Nor does the third rationale, based on Robert Ranfone's affidavit, justify summary judgment. Ranfone, the CBI employee who made the decision to deny Stewart membership, admitted that CBI generally considers an applicant's financial stability, and that when he rejected Stewart, he had before [him] a CBI report which indicated that [Stewart] had been delinquent in meeting his financial obligations in the past. Affidavit of Robert Ranfone at 2-3. From these admissions, a trier of fact could reasonably conclude that CBI denied Stewart membership at least in part because of the adverse credit report, and summary judgment was inappropriate. See Koropoulos, at 42 (court is to grant [a] motion [for summary judgment] only if the undisputed facts and the reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, when viewed in the light most favorable to the party opposing summary judgment, support a ruling for the movant). 19 CBI argues that Ranfone's affidavit, explaining that the denial of membership was independent of Stewart's credit report and instead was made for two legitimate reasons, places these legitimate reasons for denial within the perimeters of uncontested fact. 11 But this assertion by itself does not resolve the issue and make summary judgment appropriate. [I]n evaluating a motion for summary judgment [a court should weigh] ... the need for cross-examination ... in relation to [the] evidentiary materials, the general desirability of demeanor testimony, the ... access to proof by the opposing party [to the movant] and the desirability that the case receive the full exploration of a trial. Lipschutz v. Gordon Jewelry Corp., 373 F.Supp. 375, 385 (S.D.Tex.1974). In this case, a factfinder could choose not to believe CBI's self-serving, albeit plausible, assertions. And the district court's suggestion that Stewart must rebut Ranfone's affidavit makes little sense in the present situation. Since the reasons behind CBI's denial of Stewart's application for membership are known for sure only to Ranfone, there is no way for Stewart to directly rebut Ranfone's affidavit. See Hackley v. Roudebush, 520 F.2d 108, 157 (D.C.Cir.1975) (to decide if a promotion decision was racially motivated, fact-finder must hear testimony to enable him to evaluate the credibility of the decisionmaker). 12 We believe that the record manifests enough possibility that Ranfone did rely on Stewart's credit report to justify allowing Stewart to rebut Ranfone's assertion in the only meaningful manner under these circumstances--by cross-examination at trial.