On February 10, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York dismissed for lack of standing a case alleging two credit reporting agencies violated the FCRA by reporting a defaulted federal student loan that the plaintiff said was opened without her consent. The plaintiff claimed that she never applied for credit or student loans because she believed such applications would have been “futile.” The court reasoned that alleged inaccuracies in an internal credit report that were never shared with a third party do not cause concrete harm under the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez (covered by InfoBytes here).

The court rejected the plaintiff’s attempt to create a “futility exception” to the Supreme Court’s decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, finding her claim speculative and unsupported by statute. The court explained that under the Higher Education Act, a student must not be in default on any federal student loan to receive aid but noted the law does not make a negative trade line conclusive proof of default. Concluding that hypothetical credit lines not pursued cannot establish standing, the court ruled there was “no concrete harm” and dismissed the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.