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In the context of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a consumer has no private right to action to sue a creditor for reporting inaccurate information to a credit reporting agency (CRA). A consumer does have a right to sue if the creditor fails to conduct a reasonable investigation and the inaccuracy is not corrected as a result, pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(2).

Does that imply a consumer can do the following?

  1. Dispute inaccuracy with CRA. CRA investigates
  2. Sue creditor for a violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b)(1)(A) and lose
  3. Dispute inaccuracy with CRA a second time, providing enough additional information to yield a reinvestigation. CRA re-investigates
  4. Sue creditor for a violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b)(1)(A) and win
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No

The principle of Res Judicata prevents it - same parties, same facts, same legislation means that you should have brought all your claims at the same time.

It’s possible that a Henderson v Henderson cause of action estoppel may torpedo the second case from the outset. However, even if it doesn’t, issue estoppel applies to the finding that there was a “reasonable investigation” - that matter has been decided by a court and is not subject to reexamination.

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  • Probably unclear from the original wording, but the key here is that a new investigation took place as a result of the dispute in (3). It's the failure to perform a reasonable investigation that is the subject of § 1681s-2(b), rather than the inaccuracy itself. So, at least in a somewhat technical sense, the facts did change.
    – Josh Johnson
    Mar 19, 2021 at 17:04

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