Opinion ID: 4510978
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Disclosure Claim

Text: 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. 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.