Massey v. On-Site Manager, Inc.

285 F.R.D. 239, 2012 WL 3641367, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 120181
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. New York
DecidedAugust 23, 2012
DocketNo. 11 Civ. 2612 (BMC)
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 285 F.R.D. 239 (Massey v. On-Site Manager, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Massey v. On-Site Manager, Inc., 285 F.R.D. 239, 2012 WL 3641367, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 120181 (E.D.N.Y. 2012).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER

COGAN, District Judge.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(2) (“FCRA”), prohibits a consumer reporting agency from reporting information concerning “[c]ivil suits, civil judgments, and records of arrest that, from date of entry, antedate the report by more than seven years or until the governing statute of limitations has expired, whichever is the longer period.” Defendant in this case is a consumer reporting agency that prepares credit reports for landlords who are evaluating rental applications. It reported a New York judgment of eviction against plaintiff that was more than seven years old (and beyond New York’s six year statute of limitations).

[243]*243Plaintiff moves for class certification of a class comprised of (1) consumers from every state who had outdated civil actions reported against them; and (2) consumers from the states of Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Mississippi who had outdated judgments reported against them. For the reasons set forth below, I find that the class is appropriate for certification and therefore grant the motion, although with slight modifications to the class definition.

BACKGROUND

Defendant compiles consumer credit reports for landlords to consider in evaluating their prospective tenants’ rental applications. Each landlord specifies the criteria that it wishes to use, such as prospective tenants’ financial status and litigation history. Defendant then evaluates the data it receives about the tenant according to those criteria and provides a report to the landlord. Defendant generates an average of 60,000 reports per month for these landlords. These reports contain a recommendation for the landlord concerning the tenant, including “decline,” “approve,” “approve with conditions,” and “maybe.”

Since 2009, defendant has obtained information about prospective tenants’ housing court histories pursuant to contracts with LexisNexis. Defendant has undertaken efforts to limit reported housing court records to those less than seven years old, both in its communications with LexisNexis and in its own review of the supplied data. Defendant concedes that, in January 2011, it became aware of a software flaw that allowed it to report housing court records more than seven years old. It claims to have fixed the problem by August 2011.

Defendant ultimately issued over 8,000 reports containing outdated information under FCRA.1 However, defendant asserts that a maximum of 95 consumers within this group actually may have had their rental applications rejected because of the outdated court judgments. This is because, according to defendant, those consumers’ reports are the only subset of the 8,000 erroneous reports in which each report: (1) contained a “decline” recommendation from defendant; (2) actually resulted in the landlord’s rejection of the consumer’s application;2; and (3) but for the obsolete information, would not have received a “decline” recommendation.

Plaintiff was sued in a summary holdover eviction proceeding in New York Civil Court in 2002. Plaintiff did not know she had been sued because she had already moved out of the apartment at the time the suit was commenced and service was effected by “nail and mail” to and at the apartment. See N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 308(4). On October 31, 2002, the court entered a default judgment against plaintiff, awarding the landlord possession of the apartment but declining to award money damages. Plaintiff never received notice of the judgment.

Over eight years later, in November 2010, plaintiff applied to rent an apartment in Queens from Vantage Management Services, a landlord customer of defendant. The report that defendant provided to Vantage included information about the 2002 eviction proceeding and recommended that plaintiffs application be denied. Vantage rejected the application, advising plaintiff that the rejection was based in whole or in part on the report obtained from defendant.

Plaintiff approached defendant to obtain a retraction of the obsolete data. When defendant refused, plaintiff commenced this class action. The class that she seeks to certify consists of:

All persons who were the subject of a consumer report, prepared within two years of the initiation of this action, which included either: a) records of a civil court action filed anywhere in the country which did not result in a judgment which predated the report by more than seven years; [244]*244or b) a possessory judgment arising from a judicial eviction proceeding which predated such report by more than seven years where the judgment was issued in Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, Nevada, or Mississippi.3

On behalf of the class, plaintiff seeks FCRA statutory damages of between $100 and $1,000 per violation. See 15 U.S.C. § 1681n(a)(l)(A).

DISCUSSION

I. Standard for Class Certification

Rule 28(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires that any proposed class action: “(1) be sufficiently numerous, (2) involve questions of law or fact common to the class, (3) involve class plaintiffs whose claims are typical of those of the class, and (4) involve a class representative or representatives who adequately represent the interests of the class.” Myers v. Hertz Corp., 624 F.3d 537, 547 (2d Cir.2010). Courts commonly use a shorthand summary to describe these requirements, referring to the four prongs simply as “numerosity,” “commonality,” “typicality,” and “adequacy.” See, e.g., Gen. Tel. Co. of the Sw. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 156, 102 S.Ct. 2364, 2370-71, 72 L.Ed.2d 740 (1982).

Regardless of whether class certification is contested, a court may not certify a putative class unless it has performed a “rigorous analysis” and determined that each of Rule 23’s requirements has been met. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, — U.S. -, 131 S.Ct. 2541, 2551, 180 L.Ed.2d 374 (2011); Falcon, 457 U.S. at 161, 102 S.Ct. at 2372. As part of this analysis, the court must assess all relevant evidence admitted at the class certification stage and resolve any relevant factual disputes, even if this requires a determination of issues that go to the merits of the case. See In re Initial Pub. Offerings Sec. Litig., 471 F.3d 24, 41-42 (2d Cir.2006). The party moving for class certification “bears the burden of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that each of Rule 23’s requirements has been met.” Myers, 624 F.3d at 547; accord, Teamsters Local 445 Freight Div. Pension Fund v. Bombardier, Inc., 546 F.3d 196, 202 (2d Cir.2008).

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Bluebook (online)
285 F.R.D. 239, 2012 WL 3641367, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 120181, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/massey-v-on-site-manager-inc-nyed-2012.