Safeco Insurance Company of America v. Burr

Case Updates

The Supreme Court adopted a liability standard under the FCRA holding that an insurer willfully fails to comply with the statute if it acts in reckless disregard of the statute’s notice obligation. In doing so, the court properly reversed the erroneous Ninth Circuit decisions.

NCLC urged the Supreme Court to reverse the Ninth Circuit’s lenient ruling reducing the threshold of the Fair Credit Reporting Act's (FCRA) ”willfully” requirement so as to trigger statutory and uncapped punitive damages unnecessarily. NCLC also argued that the Ninth Circuit erred in its ruling in determining when an “adverse action” notice is triggered under the FCRA. The erroneous Ninth Circuit decisions came out of several class action lawsuits that were filed against various insurance companies for alleged willful violations of the FCRA for failure to provide applicants with adverse action notices taken against the applicants in receiving insurance premium quotes. In its brief, NCLC argued that the Ninth Circuit holdings are contrary to the statutory text of the FCRA and will have a substantial effect on many different sectors of American business. The case was consolidated with GEICO General Insurance Company, et al. v. Edo.