Facts

Celeste Landini sued FIA Card Services and National Association, alleging consumer law violations.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS:
Plaintiff alleged that in 2001, she opened a credit card account with defendant FIA. In 2009, she failed to make any payments, resulting in FIA charging off her account in November 2009. In 2011, she filed for bankruptcy and listed her FIA account. Ultimately, the bankruptcy court discharged the account. In 2012, plaintiff disputed the charge off notations on her credit report, arguing they were inaccurate in that the report noted that FIA was charged off in October 2011 and January 2012. Such a notation gave off the impression that defendant still had the ability to collect on the debt, which was both untrue and misleading given that the account was actually discharged through bankruptcy. As such, plaintiff sued for failing to reasonably investigate her dispute in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. She also asserted related claims for violations of the California Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act and California's Unfair Competition Law.

DEFENDANTS' CONTENTIONS:
Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that the charge off notation was neither inaccurate nor misleading. Further, defendants claimed that they had no obligation to report the account as charged off.

Result

The court concluded that Landini's FCRA claim failed because she failed to demonstrate that FIA even had a duty to report the dispute and/or that FIA's reporting was inaccurate. As a result, FIA was entitled to summary judgment on that claim as well as the CCRAA claim which relied on a showing of FIA's inaccurate reporting. Further, Landini's UCL claim also necessarily failed because the sole basis for that claim was a violation of the CCRAA. Therefore the court entered judgment in favor of FIA on all of Landini's claims.