ok. Quit your panicking I'm just kidding :)))) But really,can you imagine any CRA suing a consumer? I've thought (and laughed) about this quite a lot in the last day. What would their case be? Let's try: Here comes now xxx, a consumer reporting agency, against individual aaa. On or about Sept 7 and before, aaa stated and exercised his CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED rights of free speech and accurately accessed our systems, procedures, and data integrity. He described his erroneous credit file and stated how poorly he was treated by us and by our system; however, we don't like what he said. XXX states that the agency has not ever nor is currently: Reporting ANY inaccuracies against ANY consumers Dissiminating these inaccuracies to any creditors Hurting any consumers by dissiminating any errors, inaccuracies, mixed files, reinsertions of errors Purposefully or negligently deleting positive accounts that weren't even in dispute or were in dispute for little things like a balance correction Purposefully either didn't require credit limits from large subscribers or didn't bother publishing submitted credit limits given, thus purposefully decreasing consumers' creditworthiness by artificially inflating a key score driver: ratios. Have no vested interest in selling derogatory credit reports for more money than pristine reports Have no vested interest in selling MORE derogatory credit reports as consumers try to make their way to prime Have no vested interest in selling more credit reports for account reviews as subprime creditors check their subprime cardholders more often for declines in scores In fact, XXX has always: Maintained 100% perfectly accurate credit files on every individual collected and stored in the database always Always followed the FCRA and all state laws to the letter Always completely and professionally dealt with consumers when they lied and said they had inaccuracies (we investigated properly... thoroughly... and completely even though we KNOW all our files are correct and all consumers are wrong when it comes to the content of their files) Always acted in a NONBIASED mannner to every consumer and creditor Never retaliated against a consumer, intimidated a consumer, or even sent out letters asking about "credit repair" when a consumer shows some intelligence about his/her credit file Never had one issue with either the FTC, any state's atty generals or Office of Consumer Affairs. Never had any sanctions, fines, or other penalties imposed on us because our system, procedures, and data are flawless In general, we have a perfect system, perfect data, and unfortunately, due to the nature of our data we have to deal with cry-baby consumers who just want to waste our time on our 800#s and deliberately make us do "re-investigations" when clearly not one is ever justified. We truly feel we are wronged and that we have been libeled if any consumer dare question us. After all, we are all knowing, all powerful, and perfect. And now we think we are not only above the petty federal laws (that we bought and watered down, heheheh) but we are now also above the US Constitution! In summary, we are the Holy Grail of all and we would like to not only take away aaa's right to free speech... but just for the record, we're gonna flag his account and try to ruin his life as much as possible in the future (but our counsel told us not to divulge this to the court). After all, what else is he going to do to us??? File a real lawsuit in US District court with a Johnny Cochran-like atty who will publically denounce our ways and get a bigger than the last 4.7M verdict lost (that got overturned in appeals on 2 baby technicalities)? We pray that the courts will: Rescind the 1st Ammend ... oh heck, let's ask for the whole Constitution in case anything else might bother us in the future Sqwash aaa's right to ever discuss us in any manner, orally or written Make all state laws and regulatory agencies null and void with respect to us And in general, irritate the daylights out of aaa with the nagging knowledge that we KNOW WHO HE IS and WHAT HE's DOING!!! And we also request that the defendant's request for a jury trial be denied... although we know we'd win with a jury because not one of the jurors has ever had or has known someone who's had a consumer credit report that's ever been inaccurate, harmful, or a nightmare to correct. And we know all Americans know the system is perfect as is and that we are here with their best interests in mind and we are not just looking at our own bottom line. So we thank the courts, in advance, for simply protecting this helpless huge international giant from this menacing consumer.
So if the defendants get a motion for summary judgment... then don't oppose it and you won't be liable for defendant's atty fees... right. Good point. thanks
Marie: You should go read the entire ruling and case discussion before making the assumptions that you did. Greg only posted about ½ the total argument and so based on just what you read, you assumed something that is not correct. Had Greg posted the entire commentary on the case which was about twice as long as what he posted you would have had a much better picture of the issues and the reasons the court ruled as it did.
Going to also point out Greg's example is US District Court. Don't go in there without an atty... and neither will the other side. A lot of people are trying their cases in smaller courts, hence, the CRAs will likely not even bother with an atty but will instead send a manager or something. Atty fees won't be pertinent. If you do your research it's likely you'd be better informed than their employee because the employee will assume you'll roll over with the proper corrections and not be aggressive and go through with the lawsuit when they're willing to correct the file. I also will point out that I now question whether the corrections that are made to the file, without a court order (before the hearing) would really stick.. or if the CRAs would still be sending that covert negative info we're now realizing our creditors see without our knowledge. I wouldn't settle without the judge signing off on the settlement.
Marie: Here is the entire text. As you can see here, Ryan(plaintiff) failed to prove his case against TU. Based on the fact that the court held that Ryan failed to prove his case, TU(Defendants) moved for attorney's fees pursuant to 15 U.S.C.S. § 1681n(c). The court held that defendants were entitled to a partial award of attorney's fees from plaintiff under the FCRA to the extent that plaintiff filed oppositions to defendants' summary judgment motions knowing that he no longer had a valid claim. So, in a manner of speaking, Ryan, upon knowing that he no longer had a valid claim (winable case) pursued the matter even further so the court made him pay part of TU's attorney fees for that portion thereof which constitued his ill advised actions against TU. That is the whole story judging from what was posted on the site Greg cross posted from.
Well... maybe it's late and I'm missing something. I guess even after reading this, I'm still of the same opinion that the atty fees were awarded because the plaintiff pursued post defendant's winning summary judgment... if ryan had left it alone after the summary judgment then TU wouldn't have gotten partial atty fees. which is what I got from Greg's post. Confused... I appreciate the larger information but the bottom line still seems the same to me. don't pursue past summary judgment if you lose. and I do think it's interesting that only partial, not full atty fees were awarded. If there's another angle I'm not seeing, please point it out. I'm a bit sick tonight so maybe I'm not thinking as clearly as normal.
