Commentary

Supreme Court Urged To Let People Sue Data Aggregators Over Inaccurate Reports

A Virginia resident who says Spokeo posted incorrect information about him is asking the Supreme Court to allow him to proceed with a potential class-action lawsuit against the company.

Thomas Robins argues that he should be able to pursue allegations that the online data aggregator violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act, regardless of whether he suffered a tangible injury.

"American courts have consistently heard common-law actions in a wide variety of contexts involving allegations of 'bare violations' of legal rights without any showing of consequential harm," he says in papers filed late Monday with the Supreme Court.

Robins' high-stakes battle with Spokeo dates to 2010, when he alleged in a class-action complaint that the company violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act. That law requires credit reporting agencies to ensure the accuracy of reports used for employment, housing and credit. It also provides for damages of up to $1,000 per violation.

Robins alleged that Spokeo posted inaccurate biographical information about him -- including that he was in his 50s, married with children, and employed in a professional or technical field. He says that he was seeking a job when he filed suit, and worried that the errors in the report would affect his job search.

U.S. District Court Judge Otis Wright II in the Central District of California dismissed Robins' complaint on the grounds that he didn't spell out how any inaccuracies harmed him financially. Robins successfully appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which revived the case on the theory that the Fair Credit Reporting Act provides for private lawsuits by consumers.

Spokeo is now asking the Supreme Court to dismiss the lawsuit for good.

The company has drawn the support of Silicon Valley, where many tech companies have faced so-called "no injury" privacy lawsuits. Google, Facebook, eBay and Yahoo -- which are among the numerous companies that have been accused of violating Web users' privacy -- are backing Spokeo's effort to get the case dismissed.

They argue in a friend-of-the-court brief that they're "frequently targeted by opportunistic lawsuits," brought by people who haven't been injured. The Web companies say the cost of defending those cases, combined with the risks of incurring "massive" damages, creates a "strong incentive to settle even the most frivolous suits."

But Robins counters in his latest papers that courts traditionally allowed people to proceed without proof of injury. For instance, Robins says, courts entertain lawsuits for assault or trespass, even when no one was physically or financially injured.

"For centuries," he writes, "the courts and Congress have provided a variety of remedies to redress the invasion of legal rights irrespective of consequential damage."

He also argues that the Supreme Court shouldn't engage in "improper judicial second-guessing" of Congress, noting that the Fair Credit Reporting Act enables consumers to recover damages in court.

"It is difficult to comprehend a greater incursion into Congress’s authority than the one Spokeo proposes," he argues. "Congress has granted statutory protection to Robins, has held Spokeo accountable to him in the form of statutory damages, and has provided a cause of action to adjudicate their private dispute in federal court."

1 comment about "Supreme Court Urged To Let People Sue Data Aggregators Over Inaccurate Reports".
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  1. Daniel Soschin from Speaker & Blogger, September 3, 2015 at 8:18 a.m.

    Aggregators need to provide those being aggregated with a means to correct their information in an easy, verifiable and accessible way. Aggregators should be held accountable for their errors until they provide such provisions. Otherewise, the should exit the aggregator business.

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