On December 4, 2013 in Maiteki v. Marten Transp., the US District Court for the District of Colorado held that each time an employer is notified that an employee contests allegedly false information sent to a credit reporting agency, under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) the employer has a new duty to conduct a reasonable investigation and the statute of limitations on the claim restarts, contrary to the holdings of other courts. (No. 12-cv-2021-WJM-CBS (D. Colo. Dec. 4, 2013)).

In Maiteki, the plaintiff alleged that three of his former employers reported negative false information about his driving record to HireRight, a credit reporting agency. After the plaintiff contacted the employers about the false information on his record, all three employers responded that they would correct his report once they conducted investigations into the disputed information. Years later, none of the employers had removed the information.

Plaintiff brought this action claiming, among other claims, violations of the FCRA and the Colorado Credit Reporting Act (CCRA) for falsely reporting accidents on his driving record, because of which the plaintiff could not obtain employment. The former employers moved to dismiss all of the plaintiff's claims.

The district court granted the employers' motions to dismiss in part and denied them in part.

On the plaintiff's FCRA and CCRA claims for falsely reporting accidents on his record, the court granted the employers' motions to the extent that the claim was premised on the actual reporting of false information, since neither statute creates a private right of action against the furnisher of the information (the employer), as opposed to the credit reporting agency. The court also granted the employers' motions on the CCRA claim for being untimely.

However, the court denied the employers' motions on the FCRA claim for failure to reasonably investigate the accuracy of the information after being notified that the plaintiff contested it, holding that:

In deciding the FCRA timeliness issue, the court noted that the statute requires a claim to be brought within two years of discovery of the violation or five years of the date of the violation, whichever is earlier. Although the plaintiff discovered the violation four years prior to bringing his claim, the court adopted the reasoning of the court in Larson v. Ford Credit to hold that his claim is timely. The court concluded that each time an employer is notified that reported information is contested, the statute of limitations restarts and a new duty to investigate the accuracy of the information is triggered. Since the employers had received notification within the two year time period, the employers' motions to dismiss the FCRA claim for being untimely were denied. The court acknowledged a split in authority on this issue, but found that its holding is more consistent with the broad remedial purposes of the statute. ( (D.Minn., June 28, 2007) (NO. 06- CV-1811 JMR/FLN)).

The court granted the employers' motions to dismiss the plaintiff's remaining claims.

Colorado employers should take note that whenever they receive notice that an employee disputes reported information, under the FCRA they have a new duty to investigate that information and the statute of limitations restarts. However, the weight of this decision may be limited as courts in Texas and Georgia have held otherwise.