Loper Bright Ends Chevron: What It Means for the FCRA

Case: Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo
Court: Supreme Court of the United States
Citation: 603 U.S. 369 (2024)
Decided: June 28, 2024
Bottom line: Courts, not the CFPB or FTC, now have the final word on contested FCRA terms, so the statute's text and appellate case law matter more than agency guidance.

Background

For forty years, Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984) told federal courts to defer to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute that the agency administers. Loper Bright arose from a challenge by commercial fishing companies to a National Marine Fisheries Service rule requiring them to pay for federal monitors on their boats. Lower courts upheld the rule by deferring to the agency under Chevron. The Supreme Court granted review to decide whether Chevron should be overruled, together with a companion case, Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce.

The case has nothing to do with credit reporting on its facts. But the FCRA is a statute with two federal agencies interpreting it. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has had most FCRA rulemaking authority since 2011 and issues Regulation V, advisory opinions, and interpretive rules. The Federal Trade Commission enforces the Act against many nonbank companies and has published staff commentary and reports interpreting it.

What the court held

Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority. The Court held that the Administrative Procedure Act directs reviewing courts to decide all relevant questions of law and to interpret statutory provisions themselves. Chevron’s presumption that ambiguity is an implicit delegation to the agency was inconsistent with that command, so Chevron was overruled.

The Court identified several limits. Courts may still give careful attention to an agency’s interpretation and may find it persuasive, especially when it was issued close to enactment and has remained consistent, under the approach of Skidmore v. Swift & Co. When a statute expressly delegates discretionary authority to an agency, courts must respect the delegation and ensure the agency stays within it. And holdings in earlier cases that relied on Chevron remain good law under statutory stare decisis; a change in interpretive method alone is not a reason to overrule them.

Justice Kagan dissented, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson (as to Relentless), arguing that Congress had long legislated against the Chevron background and that agencies have expertise courts lack.

Our take

For FCRA litigation, we think Loper Bright is less of an earthquake than in some fields, and its effects cut in both directions.

First, little of the FCRA’s case law ever depended on Chevron. The core private-litigation questions, such as what counts as an inaccuracy, what makes a reinvestigation reasonable, and what is willful, were developed by courts reading the statute. The CFPB’s advisory opinions and interpretive rules generally never received Chevron deference in the first place.

Second, the decision weakens consumer arguments that rest mainly on agency guidance, such as the CFPB’s 2024 advisory opinions on background screening and file disclosures. Those documents now carry weight only to the extent their reasoning persuades a court. The same is true for industry. Defendants can no longer rely on agency readings that favor them. The CFPB’s October 2025 interpretive rule asserting broad FCRA preemption of state credit reporting laws, which replaced a 2022 rule taking the opposite view, will be tested in court on the strength of its reasoning, not on deference.

Third, there is a willfulness wrinkle. Under Safeco Insurance Co. v. Burr, a defendant’s reading of the FCRA is not reckless if it was objectively reasonable, and authoritative guidance from the courts of appeals or the FTC can show that a reading was not. Defendants may argue that agency guidance now counts for less in that analysis, while consumers will argue that ignoring explicit, published agency warnings is still evidence of recklessness.

The Seventh Circuit illustrated the new approach two weeks later in CFPB v. Townstone, deciding an ECOA question de novo and reaching the same conclusion the agency had held for decades.

What it means if your report is wrong

Your rights under the FCRA come from the statute itself, and they did not change with Loper Bright. What changed is that courts, rather than agencies, will settle disputed questions about what the statute requires. That makes appellate decisions in your circuit, and the specific facts of your dispute, more important. A free case review can assess how the ruling affects a claim, with no fee unless we win.

Sources

Primary

Opinion (Supreme Court of the United States)

Commentary we reviewed

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.