United States District Court, D. Arizona
ORDER
Honorable John J. Tuchi United States District Judge.
At
issue is Defendant Trans Union, LLC's (“Trans
Union”) Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 19, MTD), to which
Plaintiff Alexis Bornstein filed a Response (Doc. 23, Resp.)
and Defendant filed a Reply (Doc. 24, Reply). The Court has
reviewed the parties' briefs and finds this matter
appropriate for decision without oral argument. See
LRCiv 7.2(f). For the reasons set forth below, the Court
grants Defendant's Motion to Dismiss under Federal Rule
of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).
I.
BACKGROUND
In the
First Amended Complaint, [1] Plaintiff alleges the following facts.
On August 14, 2018, Plaintiff obtained her Trans Union,
Equifax, and Experian credit disclosures and noticed a
tradeline was reported for a debt incurred for medical
services at AZ Radiology. (FAC ¶ 10, 13.) Plaintiff and
her father believed that her father's insurance should
have satisfied the amount owed. (FAC ¶ 9.) Instead, the
medical bill remained unpaid, Healthcare Collections assumed
the debt, and later reported it on Plaintiff's credit
disclosures. (FAC ¶ 7.) All Defendants, including Trans
Union, reported Healthcare Collections' tradeline on
Plaintiff's credit reports.[2] (FAC ¶ 13.)
On
September 21, 2018, Plaintiff submitted letters to Defendants
disputing the tradeline. (FAC ¶ 14.) Plaintiff's
letter claimed that her father's insurance was
responsible for paying the tradeline and requested that
Defendants delete the tradeline from her credit file. (FAC
¶ 15.) Trans Union then sent Plaintiff's consumer
dispute to Healthcare Collections. (FAC ¶ 16.) On
October 3, 2018, Plaintiff received Trans Union's
investigation results, which showed that Trans Union did not
delete the tradeline from Plaintiff's credit file. (FAC
¶ 17.)
In the
First Amended Complaint, Plaintiff asserts various violations
of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681
et seq. (“FCRA”). Plaintiff alleges that
Defendants negligently failed to follow reasonable procedures
in preparing an accurate credit report in violation of 15
U.S.C. § 1681e(b) and that Defendants violated §
1681i by negligently failing to conduct reasonable
reinvestigations to determine the accuracy of Plaintiff's
disputed debt information (Count One). Also, Plaintiff
alleges that Defendants willfully failed to follow reasonable
procedures in preparing an accurate credit report in
violation of § 1681e(b) and they violated § 1681i
by willfully failing to conduct reasonable reinvestigations
to determine the accuracy of Plaintiff's disputed debt
information (Count Two).
Defendant
Trans Union now moves to dismiss all of Plaintiff's
claims. Because Plaintiff's FCRA claims against all
Defendants are identical, the Court will analyze Trans
Union's argument as applicable to the FCRA counts against
Healthcare Collections, Equifax, and Experian. See
Silverton v. Dep't of Treasury, 644 F.2d 1341, 1345
(9th Cir.1981) (“A [d]istrict [c]ourt may properly on
its own motion dismiss an action as to defendants who have
not moved to dismiss where such defendants are in a position
similar to that of moving defendants.”).
II.
LEGAL STANDARD
When
analyzing a complaint for failure to state a claim for relief
under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the well-pled
factual allegations are taken as true and construed in the
light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Cousins v.
Lockyer, 568 F.3d 1063, 1067 (9th Cir. 2009). Legal
conclusions couched as factual allegations are not entitled
to the assumption of truth, Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556
U.S. 662, 680 (2009), and therefore are insufficient to
defeat a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.
In re Cutera Sec. Litig., 610 F.3d 1103, 1108 (9th
Cir. 2010).
A
dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim
can be based on either (1) the lack of a cognizable legal
theory or (2) insufficient facts to support a cognizable
legal claim. Balistreri v. Pacifica Police
Dep't, 901 F.2d 696, 699 (9th Cir. 1990).
“While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion
does not need detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff's
obligation to provide the ‘grounds' of his
‘entitle[ment] to relief' requires more than labels
and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements
of a cause of action will not do.” Twombly,
550 U.S. at 555 (citations omitted). The complaint must thus
contain “sufficient factual matter, accepted as true,
to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its
face.'” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,
678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570).
“[A] well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if it
strikes a savvy judge that actual proof of those facts is
improbable, and that ‘recovery is very remote and
unlikely.'” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556
(quoting Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236
(1974)).
III.
ANALYSIS
Congress
enacted the FCRA to ensure fair and accurate credit
reporting, to promote efficiency in the banking system, and
to protect consumer privacy. Gorman v. Wolpoff &
Abramson, LLP, 584 F.3d 1147, 1153 (9th Cir. 2009).
A
prerequisite for bringing a claim against a credit reporting
agency under either § 1681e or § 1681i is evidence
of an inaccuracy in the credit report. Guimond v. Trans
Union Credit Info. Co., 45 F.3d 1329, 1333 (9th
Cir. 1995); see also Carvalho v. Equifax Info. Servs.,
LLC, 629 F.3d 876, 890 (9th Cir. 2010) (“Although
the FCRA's reinvestigation provision, 15 U.S.C. §
1681i, does not on its face require that an actual inaccuracy
exist for a plaintiff to state a claim, many courts,
including our own, have imposed such a requirement.”)
A.
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