- Case
- Connecticut Fair Housing Center v. CoreLogic Rental Property Solutions, LLC
- Court
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
- Citation
- Nos. 23-1118(L), 23-1166(XAP) (2d Cir. Feb. 20, 2026)
- Decided
- February 20, 2026
- Bottom line
- Tenant screeners can face fair housing claims, but proving they caused a denial is hard when the landlord sets the rules.
Background
Carmen Arroyo’s son Mikhail suffered a traumatic brain injury in a 2015 accident, and she became his conservator. When she applied to move to a larger unit in her building so he could live with her, the property manager, WinnResidential, ran him through CrimSAFE, CoreLogic’s tenant screening product. CrimSAFE reported a pending Pennsylvania shoplifting charge, and the application was rejected. Arroyo later got the charge dismissed and settled with the landlord.
Along the way, Arroyo asked CoreLogic for Mikhail’s consumer file. CoreLogic initially required a power of attorney, which Mikhail could not sign. It later agreed to accept a conservatorship certificate, but rejected the copy she sent because it lacked the court’s impressed seal, without which the certificate states it is not valid.
Arroyo and the Connecticut Fair Housing Center sued. They claimed CrimSAFE’s criminal-history screening had a disparate impact on Black and Latino applicants under the Fair Housing Act, and that CoreLogic violated the FCRA’s file disclosure rule, 15 U.S.C. § 1681g. After a bench trial, the district court held CoreLogic was not covered by the Fair Housing Act on these facts, but found it willfully violated the FCRA.
What the court held
The panel (Judge Menashi writing) vacated in part, affirmed in part, and reversed in part.
Standing. The Fair Housing Center lacked standing. Under FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (2024), an organization “cannot spend its way into standing” by spending money to investigate and oppose a practice.
Fair Housing Act coverage. The court disagreed with the district court’s threshold approach. The Act’s “otherwise make unavailable” language looks to results, so a company can be liable even though it is not the landlord, and the Act does not categorically exclude any type of actor. The court pointed to Congress’s 1988 carve-out for certain drug convictions as evidence that the Act reaches criminal-record screening.
Causation. But Arroyo still had to prove CoreLogic proximately caused the denial, and she could not. The landlord configured CrimSAFE, chose which records counted and the lookback period, decided who saw the full report, and made the final decision. CoreLogic’s default message told landlords to verify the records and apply their own policies. The connection between building the tool and the landlord’s decision was too attenuated.
FCRA. The FCRA requires a consumer reporting agency to obtain “proper identification” before disclosing a consumer’s file, 15 U.S.C. § 1681h(a)(1). Because Arroyo submitted a facially invalid certificate even after being told what was needed, she could not show CoreLogic’s documentation rules kept her from getting the file. The court reversed the FCRA judgment.
Our take
The coverage holding is a meaningful win for tenants. Screening companies have argued they are mere data vendors outside fair housing law. The Second Circuit rejected that categorical defense; the United States participated as amicus curiae.
The causation holding takes much of that back. Most screening products are configurable, and most vendors tell landlords to apply their own policies. If those features defeat proximate cause as a matter of course, screeners will rarely be liable even when their products drive denials in practice. We think the analysis should look harder at what a product actually does, such as whether it delivers a pass/fail result that landlords treat as final, rather than at disclaimers. The opinion leaves room for that argument on a different record.
On the FCRA claim, the result follows from the facts. But the case shows a real gap. Conservators, guardians, and families of people with disabilities often struggle to get screening files, and screening companies’ identification rules can become barriers.
What it means if your report is wrong
If you are denied housing because of a tenant screening report, you are entitled to an adverse action notice naming the screening company. Request your file from that company under § 1681g, and dispute anything inaccurate or outdated, such as dismissed charges or records belonging to someone else. If you are requesting a file on behalf of someone else, send complete, valid legal authority, such as a properly sealed conservatorship certificate. A free case review can assess how this ruling affects your claim, with no fee unless we win.
Sources
Primary
Commentary we reviewed
- Orrick InfoBytes — Second Circuit Finds No Fair Housing Act Liability, Reverses FCRA Ruling in Tenant Screening Dispute
- National Housing Law Project (counsel for plaintiffs) — case page and briefs
Updated November 1, 2026. "Our take" is the firm's opinion. This page is general information, not legal advice, and later decisions may change the law.