## Facts

- Adelaide Andrews provided personal information, including her Social Security number, at a doctor’s office in California.
- A receptionist obtained that information and later used it in connection with attempts to open credit accounts, using Andrews’s Social Security number but the impostor’s own name and address.
- TRW, a consumer reporting agency, furnished copies of Andrews’s credit report in response to credit inquiries on July 25, September 27, and October 28, 1994, and January 3, 1995, based on matching identifiers.
- Andrews learned of the disclosures and resulting adverse entries on May 31, 1995, when she sought to refinance her home and obtained her credit report.
- After Andrews notified TRW, TRW corrected the file, but Andrews claimed she incurred financial harm from abandoning refinancing efforts and obtaining less favorable credit.
- Andrews sued TRW on October 21, 1996, asserting (among other claims) that TRW failed to use reasonable procedures to prevent improper disclosures, in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(a).
- TRW argued that claims tied to the July 25 and September 27, 1994 disclosures were time-barred under 15 U.S.C. § 1681p’s two-year limitations period.

## Issues

1. Whether the Fair Credit Reporting Act’s limitations provision, 15 U.S.C. § 1681p, includes a general discovery rule delaying accrual until a plaintiff discovers the injury.
2. Whether § 1681p’s discovery-based language applies only to the statute’s express exception for willful misrepresentation of required disclosures that is material to the claim.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and remanded.
- The Court held that § 1681p does not contain a general discovery rule for all FCRA claims.
- The Court ruled that § 1681p’s discovery-based extension applies only in the specific circumstance Congress described: willful misrepresentation of information required to be disclosed to the consumer, where the misrepresentation is material to the claim.
- The Court concluded that reading a general discovery rule into § 1681p would make the statute’s express misrepresentation exception largely redundant.
- Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, concurred in the judgment, rejecting the addition of judge-made discovery principles absent statutory direction.

## Legal Principles

- Under the FCRA’s pre-2003 limitations provision, an action must be brought within two years from the date the liability arises, unless the plaintiff shows the statute’s express willful-misrepresentation exception.
- When Congress provides an express, limited discovery-based exception within a statute of limitations, courts should not infer a broader discovery rule that would render the exception superfluous.
- There is no uniform federal presumption that limitations periods always run from discovery of injury; accrual depends on statutory text and structure.

## Conclusion

The Court held that FCRA claims are generally governed by an occurrence-based two-year limitations period running from when “liability arises,” and that courts may not extend that period by implying a general discovery rule beyond § 1681p’s narrow, express willful-misrepresentation exception.


TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U.S. 19 (2001)