## Facts

- Cheevers opened a Visa credit card account with Crestar in April 1992 and made regular payments through December 1993.
- After incurring additional charges in early 1994, Cheevers removed the card from his wallet due to financial difficulties and later could not locate it, believing it may have been lost during a move.
- In June 1994, after the account became delinquent, Crestar blocked the account and notified Cheevers that charging privileges were suspended.
- In October and November 1994, Amtrak ticket charges totaling roughly $3,500 were posted to the account from automated ticket machines despite the block.
- Crestar sent a billing statement dated November 29, 1994 reflecting the Amtrak charges; Cheevers testified he never received it due to address changes and mail forwarding.
- Crestar sued in Superior Court to recover the outstanding balance including the Amtrak charges; Cheevers denied authorizing or making most of the disputed charges and stated he did not know who made them.
- Cheevers first learned of the Amtrak charges and the lawsuit after the suit was filed, when he contacted Crestar to pay the undisputed balance and disputed the Amtrak charges.

## Issues

1. Whether a cardholder must provide written notice within the FCBA billing-error procedures (15 U.S.C. § 1666) as a prerequisite to asserting TILA’s limitation on liability for unauthorized use (15 U.S.C. § 1643) in a collection action.
2. Whether the card issuer met its burden under 15 U.S.C. § 1643 to prove the disputed charges were authorized, or that statutory conditions for imposing liability for unauthorized use were satisfied.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed judgment for Cheevers.
- The court held that § 1666 does not impose a mandatory notice requirement that must be satisfied to invoke § 1643’s unauthorized-use liability limits.
- The court held Crestar failed to carry its statutory burden to prove the Amtrak charges were authorized or that the requirements for cardholder liability under § 1643 were met.

## Legal Principles

- TILA § 1643 sets substantive limits on a cardholder’s liability for unauthorized use; FCBA § 1666 provides a dispute-resolution procedure that triggers creditor duties upon timely written notice.
- Failure to invoke § 1666’s billing-error procedure does not forfeit the cardholder’s ability to contest liability for unauthorized charges under § 1643 in a creditor’s collection suit.
- Under § 1643, the card issuer bears the burden of proving authorization, or if the use was unauthorized, proving compliance with statutory conditions necessary to impose liability on the cardholder.
- Posting of disputed charges, without proof of authorization or proof of statutory compliance, is insufficient to establish cardholder liability; charges posted after an account was blocked weigh against the issuer’s position absent an adequate showing.

## Conclusion

The court held that a cardholder may rely on TILA’s unauthorized-use protections without having sent an FCBA billing-error notice, and it affirmed judgment for the cardholder because the issuer did not prove the disputed post-block Amtrak charges were authorized or otherwise chargeable to the cardholder under § 1643.


Crestar Bank, N.A. v. Cheevers, 744 A.2d 1043 (D.C. 2000)