United States First Circuit

In plaintiff's suit against Verizon seeking more than $1 million for claimed violations of his rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) based on Verizon's handling of the parties' prior disputes resolved in state court, summary judgment in favor of defendant is affirmed where: 1) under section 1681s-2(b) of the FCRA, there is a private cause of action, the investigation must be reasonable, this test is objective, and plaintiff bears the burden of proof; 2) a section 1681s-2(b) claim requires plaintiff to show actual inaccuracies that a furnisher's objectively reasonable investigation would have been able to discover; 3) on the FCRA claims, plaintiff failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact on two issues on which he bore the burden; and 4) on plaintiff's FDCPA claim, there is no material dispute of fact that Verizon is not a debt collector.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/09/2010
• Published 02/09/2010

Judges

• LYNCH, Chief Judge., Before LYNCH, Chief Judge, LIPEZ and HOWARD, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States First Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Dean Carnahan with whom Law Offices of Dean Carnahan were on brief for appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Joshua A. Lewin with whom William A. Worth and Prince, Lobel, Glovsky & Tye LLP were on brief for appellee.