Opinion ID: 2191418
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: I-A Nature of the Business Involved.

Text: The plaintiff Equifax is a Georgia Corporation authorized to do business in Maine. The plaintiff Frank Robinson was Vice-President of a region of Equifax which included Maine, and the plaintiff Paul Weeks was the manager of an Equifax office maintained in Falmouth, Maine. Equifax engages in the business of being a consumer reporting agency, as defined in Section 1312(4) of the Maine Act [1] and in the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681a(f) [2] (the Federal Act). Equifax has offices all over the United States, several of which are located in Maine. As a consumer reporting agency, Equifax gathers and sells information about individuals who have applied for credit, insurance or employment (or the like). Among the purchasers of these informational reports (consumer reports) are insurance companies, banks and diverse kinds of employers. We refer to the purchasers of consumer reports as users. The users need information from various sources to enable them properly to evaluate a consumer's qualifications and capacity to undertake the particular transactions involved in applications of consumers for credit, insurance coverage, employment and so forth. Approximately 80 to 85 percent of the Maine users to which Equifax has furnished consumer reports have been engaged in the business of insurance. In 1976, Equifax furnished more than 60,000 consumer reports to users in the State of Maine, and in 1977 and 1978 the volume of such reports was approximately the same. The reports themselves vary in nature and scope, depending on the purposes for which they may be drawn. Thus, for example, the reports to life insurance companies will be in a form and have a content to assist in the underwriting of life, health and disability insurance; as furnished to fire and casualty insurers, the reports will be geared to help the underwriting of fire and casualty policies on home or automobile; as provided to employers, the reports will be formulated to be of benefit in the making of hiring decisions as to various kinds of work; and as sent to banks, reports will be formulated to be of benefit in the evaluation of applicants for loans. Equifax uses numerous printed forms containing a series of questions about consumers, the questions being devised to relate to particular transactions involved. The scope of the information may include data on a consumer's past or present employment, home environment, hobbies, health, use of alcohol or drugs, criminal record, credit record, military record, sources of income, financial stability, reputation, and so forth. In consequence of consultations between Equifax and users, the information supplied in the reports conforms very generally to areas designated by users, and various questionnaire forms are prepared and utilized to obtain the kinds of information users wish to have furnished. The process of gathering information also varies according to the purpose and nature of the consumer report. Typically, field investigators employed by Equifax compile information through personal interviews with the consumers who are the subjects of reports, through interviews with their friends, neighbors and associates and also through investigations of public records. Although the uses to which consumer reports may be put vary according to the needs of particular users, the record before us suggests that at least in the insurance context, which encompasses the large majority of the reports furnished in Maine, the reports are used mainly to achieve a final verification of information received from other sources-such as, for example, the information acquired from insurance application forms and from the observations, or reports, or both, of insurance agents. The consumer reports serve to verify and supplement data received through these other sources. Should an inconsistency appear concerning an important aspect of an application, a further investigation may be ordered either by the user or the consumer reporting agency in an effort to clarify the inconsistency. Thus, consumer reports generally serve as one, albeit an important, source of information through which users seek to obtain information to assist them in making decisions incident to the conduct of their businesses.