## Facts

- TransUnion, a consumer reporting agency, offered an “OFAC Name Screen Alert” that compared consumers’ first and last names to a federal list of terrorists, drug traffickers, and other serious criminals.
- If a name matched, TransUnion placed an OFAC “potential match” alert on the consumer’s credit report; at the time, it did not use additional identifying data beyond first and last names.
- In 2011, Sergio Ramirez was denied a car purchase after a dealership received a credit report indicating he was on an OFAC “terrorist list,” and the car was purchased in his wife’s name.
- Ramirez requested his TransUnion disclosures and received mailings that included OFAC “potential match” information and allegedly failed to comply with statutory requirements governing how disclosures and a summary of rights must be provided.
- A damages class of 8,185 consumers was certified under Rule 23(b)(3) based on similar OFAC alerts and similar mailings.
- The parties stipulated that TransUnion disseminated OFAC-flagged credit reports to third parties for 1,853 class members; 6,332 class members had OFAC alerts only in internal TransUnion files, without third-party dissemination during the relevant period.
- The class asserted three claims under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA): (1) failure to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy, (2) failure to provide required disclosures upon request, and (3) failure to provide a compliant summary of rights.
- A jury found TransUnion liable and awarded statutory and punitive damages; the Ninth Circuit affirmed liability and class certification while reducing punitive damages.
- The Supreme Court granted review limited to whether Article III standing existed for all class members seeking damages.

## Issues

1. Whether every member of a damages class action must show an Article III “concrete” injury-in-fact to recover for alleged FCRA violations.
2. Whether class members whose credit files contained an OFAC alert but whose reports were not disseminated to third parties suffered a concrete injury for standing purposes.
3. Whether alleged defects in FCRA disclosures and summaries of rights, without individualized evidence of resulting harm, constitute concrete injury for all class members in a damages action.

## Decision

- The Court reversed and remanded, holding that only plaintiffs concretely harmed by a statutory violation have Article III standing to seek damages in federal court.
- The 1,853 class members whose OFAC-flagged reports were disseminated to third-party businesses had standing on the reasonable-procedures claim because the dissemination caused a concrete reputational injury analogous to defamation.
- The 6,332 class members whose OFAC alerts remained only in internal files, without third-party dissemination, lacked standing on the reasonable-procedures claim because the inaccuracy caused no concrete harm.
- For the disclosure and summary-of-rights claims, only Ramirez demonstrated concrete harm based on evidence of confusion and responsive actions; the remaining class members lacked standing absent proof that the alleged formatting/content defects caused them concrete injury.

## Legal Principles

- Article III standing in federal court requires a concrete injury-in-fact; a statutory violation, by itself, does not automatically satisfy concreteness.
- Concreteness for intangible harms is assessed by whether the alleged injury bears a close relationship to harms traditionally recognized as a basis for suit (including reputational harms).
- Dissemination to third parties of false, damaging credit information can constitute a concrete reputational injury supporting standing in a damages action.
- The mere existence of inaccurate information in an internal database, without disclosure or other real-world effects, does not constitute a concrete injury for damages standing.
- In damages suits, a risk of future harm that has not materialized generally does not qualify as a concrete injury-in-fact.
- In class actions seeking damages, each class member must establish standing; standing cannot be presumed from class membership or from the existence of a statutory cause of action.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Article III permits damages recovery only for class members who can show concrete harm from the alleged FCRA violations, allowing standing for consumers whose misleading OFAC alerts were disseminated to third parties but denying standing where alerts remained internal or where disclosure-related violations lacked individualized proof of injury.


TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021)