In April 2010, Equable Ascent Financial, LLC (Equable) sued Curtis Collins (consumer) in an Alabama Small Claims Court. Equable alleged that it had been assigned an account from GE Capital Corp., and that Equable had the right to bring an action for payment on that account. The consumer denied that he owed Equable any money, and the Small Claims Court entered judgment in his favor.

In June 2010, the consumer's purported debt to Equable was listed on a credit report issued by Experian (CRA). The consumer then wrote a report to the CRA seeking to remove the Equable debt from his credit file on the grounds that the Small Claims Court had entered judgment in his favor. A corporate representative of the CRA testified that, due in part to a zip code discrepancy on the envelope, the CRA believed the letter may not have been sent by the consumer. The CRA then sent a letter to the consumer, stating that it had received a suspicious request regarding his personal credit information.

After the consumer responded to the CRA with a second letter requesting immediate removal of the account from his credit report, the CRA sent an Automated Consumer Dispute Verification form (ACDV) to Equable. The ACDV listed the dispute reason as "Equable Ascent sued me for this debt in Jefferson County Alabama and I won." In response to the ACDV, Equable erroneously responded to the CRA that the debt was still valid. The CRA did not take any other action to investigate the consumer's claim.

The CRA's system generated an investigation results summary that was sent to the consumer on September 9, 2010. On November 23, 2010, the consumer visited the CRA's website and discovered that his Equable account was still being reported.

In February 2011, the consumer filed a lawsuit against the CRA in state court, arguing that:

A credit report issued after the consumer filed the lawsuit included the disputed debt, but the CRA removed the disputed debt from the consumer's credit report on March 10, 2011. The CRA then removed the case to federal court.

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the CRA upon determining that the consumer could not show actual damages. The court concluded that there were sufficient facts for a jury to find that the CRA was negligent in failing to conduct a reasonable reinvestigation under the FCRA. However, the court nevertheless ruled against the consumer on the basis that "the majority of courts have consistently required a plaintiff to prove actual harm resulting from [the CRA's] disclosure of the erroneous report to a third party in order to recover damages for emotional distress." The district court held that, here, the consumer failed to present evidence that the erroneous information regarding his Equable account was ever published to a third party.

Under Section 1681o of the FCRA, "[a]ny person who is negligent in failing to comply with any requirement imposed under [the] subchapter with respect to any consumer is liable to that consumer in an amount equal to the sum of . . . any actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure."

Rejecting the district court's holding, the Court noted that this case presented a matter of first impression on the issue of whether a plaintiff seeking damages for a negligent violation of the specific subsection 1681i(a) of the FCRA must show publication of the inaccurate information to a third party.

The Court engaged in a statutory interpretation of the FCRA, noting that Congress chose to give different statutory definitions to the terms "consumer report" and "file." Specifically, under the FCRA:

The Court found that Section 1681i(a) of the FCRA requires a reasonable reinvestigation if a consumer directly notifies the agency that he or she disputes "the completeness or accuracy of any item of information contained in [that] consumer's file." Emphasizing the language of the provision, the Court concluded that the text of Section 1681i(a) does not require communication to a third party. Therefore, the Court held that the plain language of the FCRA contains no requirement that the disputed information be published to a third party in order for a consumer to recover actual damages.

The Court remanded the matter for the district court to determine whether the consumer's evidence of emotional distress was sufficient to present a question of material fact as to damages.

Under Section 1681n(a) of the FCRA, "[a]ny person who willfully fails to comply with any requirement imposed under this subchapter with respect to any consumer is liable to that consumer" for actual, statutory or punitive damages.

Reckless disregard qualifies as a willful violation of Section 1681n(a). To support a finding of reckless disregard, the CRA's conduct must:

The Court determined that, while a jury could find the CRA's reinvestigation conduct negligent, the CRA's conduct could not amount to a willful violation because the conduct did not rise to the level of running a risk of violating the law substantially greater than the risk associated with a reading that was merely careless.