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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

9th Circuit: Fannie Mae is not a consumer reporting agency under the FCRA

Courts FCRA Fannie Mae Ninth Circuit Appellate Foreclosure Consumer Reporting Agency

Courts

On January 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that Fannie Mae is not a “consumer reporting agency” under the FCRA and therefore is not liable under the law. According to the opinion, homeowners attempted to refinance their current mortgage loan two years after completing a short sale on their prior mortgage. While shopping for the refinance, lenders used Fannie Mae’s Desktop Underwriting (DU) program to determine if the loan would be eligible for purchase by the agency. Three of the eight DU findings showed the loan would be ineligible due to a foreclosure reported for the homeowners within the last seven years, which was not true. The homeowners sued Fannie Mae alleging the agency violated the FCRA for inaccurate reporting. On cross motions for summary judgment, the lower court determined that Fannie Mae was liable under the FCRA for furnishing inaccurate information because the agency “acts as a consumer reporting agency when it licenses DU to lenders.”

On appeal, the 9th Circuit reviewed whether Fannie Mae was a consumer reporting agency under the FCRA and noted that the agency must “regularly engage[] in . . . the practice of assembling or evaluating” consumer information, which Fannie Mae argues it does not do. Specifically, the agency asserts that it simply provides software that allows lenders to evaluate consumer information. The appeals court agreed, concluding that Fannie Mae created the tool but the person using the tool is the person engaging in the act. The court reasoned, “[t]here is nothing in the record to suggest that Fannie Mae assembles or evaluates consumer information.” Moreover, the court noted, if Fannie Mae were found to be a consumer reporting agency, it would be subject to other FCRA duties to borrowers, which “would contradict Congress’s design for Fannie Mae to operate only in the secondary mortgage market, to deal directly with lenders, and not to deal with borrowers themselves.”