- Case
- Ramirez v. TransUnion LLC
- Court
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- Citation
- 951 F.3d 1008 (9th Cir. 2020) (No. 17-17244), rev'd, 594 U.S. 413 (2021)
- Decided
- February 27, 2020
- Bottom line
- This decision's broad standing ruling was overturned: after TransUnion v. Ramirez, a false item in your file generally supports a damages claim when it was shared with others or caused other concrete harm.
Background
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) keeps a list of “Specially Designated Nationals,” people barred from doing business in the United States for national security reasons. TransUnion sold an add-on product that flagged consumers whose names matched names on that list. According to the Ninth Circuit, TransUnion’s vendor ran basic first-and-last-name searches, even though TransUnion could have run more accurate searches and even though the Third Circuit had told it in 2010, in Cortez v. Trans Union, that this practice violated the FCRA.
In February 2011, Sergio Ramirez tried to buy a car with his wife. The dealership pulled his credit report, which carried an “OFAC ADVISOR ALERT” on its first page, and the salesman told him Nissan would not sell to him because he was on “a terrorist list.” When Ramirez asked TransUnion for his file, he received mailings that the Ninth Circuit later described as confusing and incomplete, including about how to get the alert removed.
Ramirez brought a class action for 8,185 consumers who had OFAC alerts in their files during a seven-month period in 2011. Of those, 1,853 had reports sent to a third party during the class period. A jury found three willful FCRA violations: failure to follow reasonable procedures to assure accuracy (§ 1681e(b)), failure to disclose the full file (§ 1681g(a)(1)), and failure to provide a summary of rights (§ 1681g(c)(2)). It awarded $984.22 in statutory damages and $6,353.08 in punitive damages per class member, about $60 million total.
What the court held
Judge Murguia wrote for the panel. The court first held “that every member of a class certified under Rule 23 must satisfy the basic requirements of Article III standing at the final stage of a money damages suit when class members are to be awarded individual monetary damages.” It noted this did not change what plaintiffs must show at class certification.
The majority then found that all 8,185 class members had standing on all three claims. On the accuracy claim, it held “that a real risk of harm arose when TransUnion prepared the inaccurate reports and made them readily available to third parties.” It also found standing on the disclosure claims and rejected TransUnion’s challenges to willfulness, class certification, and statutory damages.
The court agreed with TransUnion that the punitive award was excessive under due process and reduced it to $3,936.88 per class member.
Judge McKeown concurred in part and dissented in part. In her view, only the 1,853 members whose reports went to third parties had standing on the accuracy claim, and only Ramirez had standing on the disclosure claims.
Later history. The Supreme Court reversed on June 25, 2021, in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413. It adopted essentially Judge McKeown’s line: the 1,853 class members whose reports were provided to third-party businesses had standing on the reasonable-procedures claim, the other 6,332 did not, and no class member other than Ramirez had standing on the mailing claims. The Ninth Circuit’s broader “risk of harm” holding is no longer good law on those points.
Our take
The facts found by the jury were serious: a national credit bureau labeled thousands of ordinary consumers as potential terrorists using a method it had already been told was unlawful. The Ninth Circuit treated that as harm to everyone flagged. We think that was a fair reading of what Congress was protecting, and it is the view the dissenting Justices took in 2021.
But the Supreme Court’s decision now controls. Under TransUnion v. Ramirez, a false item sitting unseen in a bureau’s internal file is generally not enough by itself to support a federal damages claim. The harm usually arises when the information is shared with a lender, landlord, or employer, or when it causes some other concrete injury. The Ninth Circuit’s opinion remains worth reading for its account of TransUnion’s conduct and its willfulness analysis, but readers should rely on the Supreme Court’s standing rule.
What it means if your report is wrong
If a credit or background report mislabeled you, whether as an OFAC match, a criminal, or someone else with a similar name, find out who received the report. A denial letter, an adverse action notice, or the “inquiries” section of your report can show that the error was shared. Dispute the item in writing and keep copies. Evidence that the error reached a third party is often central to a claim after TransUnion v. Ramirez. A free case review can assess your situation, and there is no fee unless we win.
Sources
Primary
- Opinion (Ninth Circuit)
- TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021) (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.