InfoBytes Blog
State AGs File Amicus Brief With U.S. Supreme Court in FCRA Standing Case
On September 9, the Massachusetts Attorney General announced that her office, along with 12 other states and the District of Columbia, had filed with the U.S. Supreme Court an amicus brief supporting the plaintiff-respondent in Spokeo v. Robins. (Previous InfoBytes coverage can be seen here). The putative class-action plaintiff in that case claimed that an online data broker published inaccurate information about him in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Reversing the district court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the violation of a statutory right created by FCRA was, in itself, a sufficient injury to confer standing to sue under Article III of the Constitution. In their multistate amicus brief, the AGs argued that the Supreme Court should affirm this holding. The states asserted that businesses frequently rely on consumer data profiles to make important credit, employment, housing, and insurance decisions. However, “the damage done by . . . an inaccurate data profile is frequently impossible for the affected consumer to detect or quantify,” they argued. Accordingly, “Congress rightly has authorized statutory damages for a willful violation of the FCRA.” The AGs asserted that, given their limited resources, statutory damage cases and private class actions are needed to supplement their own consumer protection actions.