Recent Developments in Class Actions: The Fair Credit Reporting Act

TL;DRAbstract

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of class action lawsuits brought under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).1 Much of this increase has been attributed to the enhanced attention paid to credit report and financial privacy issues in the wake of the December 2003 enactment of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act).2 This renewed attention, combined with certain class action-friendly provisions of FCRA such as the availability of fee shifting and statutory damages, and the lack of a class action damages cap have combined to push the FCRA to the forefront of consumer financial services class litigation. This article first highlights several recent decisions that have the potential to impact the scope and subject of FCRA class action litigation in the future, then explores the unique issues raised by the FCRA's statutory damages scheme, the prominence that those damages issues have played in recent FCRA class certification decisions, and the implications of

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