Kingery v. Quicken Loans, Inc.

300 F.R.D. 258, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69435, 2014 WL 2117096
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. West Virginia
DecidedMay 21, 2014
DocketCivil Action No. 2:12-cv-01353
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 300 F.R.D. 258 (Kingery v. Quicken Loans, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. West Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kingery v. Quicken Loans, Inc., 300 F.R.D. 258, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69435, 2014 WL 2117096 (S.D.W. Va. 2014).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

JOSEPH R. GOODWIN, District Judge.

Pending before the court is the plaintiffs Motion for Class Certification [Docket 220]. For the reasons discussed below, the motion [Docket 220] is GRANTED.

I. Background

This case arises out of Quicken Loans, Inc.’s (“Quicken”) alleged failure to provide credit score disclosures “as soon as reasonably practicable,” in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), 15 U.S.C. § 1681g(g). Section 1681g(g), provides as follows:

Any person who makes or arranges loans and who uses a consumer credit score, as defined in subsection (f) of this section, in connection with an application initiated or sought by a consumer for a closed end loan or the establishment of an open end loan for a consumer purpose that is secured by 1 to 4 units of residential real property ... shall provide the following [notice] to the consumer as soon as reasonably practicable[.]

15 U.S.C. § 1681g(g).

To establish a claim under FCRA, Ms. Kingery must show that Quicken violated § 1681g(g) and that the violation was either negligent or willful. See Dalton v. Capital Associated Indus., Inc., 257 F.3d 409, 415 (4th Cir.2001). If the lender’s violation is negligent, the consumer may recover actual damages that result from the lender’s failure to comply with the statute. 15 U.S.C. [262]*262§ 1681o(a)(1). In the ease of a willful violation, the consumer may recover actual damages or statutory damages ranging from $100 to $1,000 and “such amount of punitive damages as the court may allow[.]” Id. § 1681n(a). In any successful action, the plaintiff can obtain attorney fees and costs. Id. §§ 16810(a)(2), 1681n(a)(3).

After 15 U.S.C. § 1681g(g) was enacted, Quicken consulted with in-house and outside counsel to determine how to comply with the statute. After consulting with counsel and reviewing the plain language of the statute, Quicken decided to send the notice in the first mailing to the client. Quicken then implemented procedures to send the notice with the application package or the prequali-fication denial letter.

A. How Quicken Processes Loan Inquiries and Delivers Credit Disclosures

Quicken uses several software programs to process loan inquiries. Quicken uses a program called Loan Origination and Lead Allocation (“LOLA”) to track, deliver, and allocate mortgage leads. A lead is a consumer who contacts Quicken online, by telephone, or through email-inquiry. Once the loan inquiry process is initiated, the lead’s contact information is transmitted to LOLA A Quicken mortgage banker will contact the lead to solicit verbal permission to pull the lead’s credit report. If the banker obtains consent, the banker will pull the report.

LOLA then communicates with Loan Platform, an intermediary software, which contacts third-party vendors to obtain the lead’s credit report. The report contains the lead’s three credit scores. When it receives the lead’s credit report, Loan Platform scrapes the data in the credit report. In addition, Loan Platform sorts the three credit scores into high, medium, or low categories. This information is transmitted to LOLA for storage in its database.

Quicken bankers can access the stored credit data for multiple purposes. For example, if the banker wants to market different programs to the lead, he or she can press the “Get Programs” button. (Ex. H, Bradley Hein Dep. Tr. [Docket 216-8], at 96-98, 102-03). An underlying program called Keystroke will look at the lead’s middle credit score and provide a list of recommended loan programs.

For various reasons, a mortgage banker may preliminarily deny or withdraw the lead from LOLA. If the banker denies the lead, he or she may manually transfer the lead to AMP, Quicken’s originating and underwriting system, for ultimate denial. The banker may also manually transfer the lead to Second Voice, a program that provides a second review of leads by a senior banker.

A nightly program may also send the lead to Second Voice via a two-step process. First, the nightly program runs an exclusionary logic to determine whether to automatically exclude the lead. The lead is automatically excluded if certain conditions are present, including whether the lead has “two or more banker contacts[.]” (Ex. G, Kevin Lang Deck [Docket 216-7] ¶ 18). If the nightly program does not first exclude the lead, the program will then run an inclusion-ary logic to determine whether to send the lead to Second Voice. Under the inclusion-ary logic, the lead will be submitted to Second Voice if the lead’s score is greater than or equal to 640.

After the lead is transferred to AMP, the lead will receive a status of “10,” which means the loan inquiry is accepted, or “100,” which means the loan inquiry is denied. At this time, AMP automatically creates a credit disclosure notice. If the lead has created a MyQL account, the credit disclosure, along with the application package or denial letter, is sent to that account. The lead then receives an email notification that documents are available in his or her MyQL account. These documents are usually placed in the MyQL account on the same day AMP enters a status of 10 or 100. If the lead has not provided an email for document disclosure, the documents are mailed to the lead.

B. The Facts of Ms. Kingery’s Case

On April 29, 2010, Ms. Kingery sent a loan inquiry to MortgageLoans.com.1 Mortage-[263]*263Loans.com identified four potential lenders, Loandepot, Ovation Home Loans, Precision Funding Group, and Quicken. Mr. Muskan, a Quicken mortgage banker, obtained Ms. Kingery’s credit report on or about May 3, 2010. Mr. Muskan did not submit Ms. King-ery’s lead to Keystroke.

Mr. Muskan claims he preliminary denied Ms. Kingery’s lead due to a pending foreclosure on her property. Allegedly, Ms. King-ery’s credit score played no role in Mr. Mus-kan’s decision to deny her lead. However, Chris McConville, Ms. Kingery’s expert, opined that any banker would have considered Ms. Kingery’s score in denying her loan inquiry. In addition, a screenshot of a sample Quicken credit report reveals that the banker must scroll past the credit scores to get to the foreclosure information.

After the preliminary denial, the nightly program reviewed Ms. Kingery’s lead. (See Ex. G, Decl. of Kevin Lang [Docket 216-7]). The nightly program automatically excluded her lead from Second Voice because multiple bankers had attempted to contact her. Therefore, Ms. Kingery’s lead was never reviewed by the nightly program’s inelusionary logic. (See Ex. K, Lang & Lusk 30(b)(6) Dep. Tr. [Docket 216-11], at 26).

On May 24, 2010, Ms. Kingery’s lead was entered into AMP and assigned a 100 status, which indicated that her loan inquiry was denied. On the same day, AMP sent Ms. Kingery’s credit disclosure and denial letter to her MyQL account. Quicken sent Ms.

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Bluebook (online)
300 F.R.D. 258, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69435, 2014 WL 2117096, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kingery-v-quicken-loans-inc-wvsd-2014.