On March 30, 2021, the Supreme Court heard arguments in TransUnion LLC. v. Ramirez, a case in which Respondent Ramirez brought a class action lawsuit against Petitioner TransUnion, alleging that it incorrectly placed a flag on his credit report; the flag suggested that Ramirez was on a list of potential terrorists and criminals maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (the “OFAC list”) because his name was similar to two individuals whose name were on that list. After Ramirez learned he had been flagged, he requested a copy of his credit report from TransUnion. TransUnion sent him a copy of his credit report, which did not include any reference to the OFAC list, and a second mailing indicating that his name was a potential match for a name on the OFAC list. Ramirez sued on behalf of himself and a class of over 8,000 individuals who received similar mailings, alleging that TransUnion violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) by (i) incorrectly flagging him as potentially appearing on the OFAC list and (ii) sending him the information about the potential match separately from his requested credit report, which he argued was confusing because the mailing regarding the OFAC list did not include FCRA-required information about how to dispute and correct the incorrect information.

(more…)