Link: Santangelo v. Comcast Corporation, Case No. 15-cv-0293 (N.D. Ill., Sept. 17, 2018).
Plaintiff, represented by Keith Keogh of Keogh Law, Ltd., sued Comcast under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act alleging they impermissibly pulled a credit check on him despite the fact he paid a $50 deposit to forgo a credit check when applying for internet services. As a result, his credit score dropped by six points. Comcast refunded Plaintiff the money he paid with interest and caused the hard pull to be masked. The parties filed cross motions for summary judgment which were both granted and denied in part.
FCRA Claim
Comcast argued that Plaintiff’s lowered credit score could not satisfy Article III’s injury-in-fact requirement with respect to his FCRA claim, because he has not shown that he was denied a loan, a purchase, or a credit application. Judge John Z. Lee disagreed, citing Evans v. Portfolio Recovery Assocs., LLC, 889 F.3d 337, 344-46 (7th Cir. 2018) for the proposition that “it is ‘very easy’ to envision a lowered credit score creating a real risk of financial or other harm that satisfies the injury-in-fact requirement.” The court also rejected the challenge to causation since the score dropped the same day as Comcast’s pull and that the case was not moot due to the refund or subsequent masking.
As to the merits, the parties disputed whether Comcast had a “legitimate business need” under § 1681b(a)(3)(F)(i), and the court found in favor of Plaintff:
There is no dispute that Comcast offered to provide Santangelo internet service without obtaining his TELCO information, if he paid a $50 deposit. And no reasonable jury could conclude that Comcast needed Santangelo’s credit score to determine his eligibility for service when Comcast’s own policies and representations to Santangelo indicated otherwise.
The court also ruled in favor of Plaintiff in regards to Comcast’s argument that Plaintiff agreed to the credit pull under § 1681b(a)(2), finding that it’s a strained argument and that Comcast failed to develop the record to support it. So liability as to the the FCRA claim was decided in favor of Plaintiff.
Whether Comcast violated the FCRA willingly or negligently (and thus whether Plaintiff may be awarded punitive damages or not) under § 1681n will be a fact for the jury:
There is evidence in the record from which a jury could reasonably conclude that the Comcast representative who initiated the credit check did so in error. But, there is other evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Comcast knew or should have known that it would likely happen based upon prior experiences with similar incidents.
State Law Claims
The court found that as to the state law claims under the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment, Plaintiff failed to adduce sufficient evidence of actual damages. As a result Comcast was awarded summary judgment on those counts. The court noted, however, that for purposes of Article III standing analysis, “actual damages and injury in fact ‘are not the same thing.’ Abbott v. Lockheed Martin Corp., 725 F.3d 803, 808 (7th Cir. 2013).”