Williams v. County of Santa Barbara

MEMORANDUM **

Harry David Williams appeals the dismissal of his action filed April 4, 2003, against the County of Santa Barbara, Russell Birchim, the County of San Diego and Mike Finch. We affirm.

Williams did not file this action within two years following the alleged occurrence — April 23, 1998. Thus, it was filed beyond the Fair Credit Reporting Act’s statute of limitations. See 15 U.S.C. § 1681p (1970) (amended 2003). The running of that statute of limitations may be tolled only if a defendant misrepresents information required to be disclosed “to an individual,” and the misrepresentation is material to establishing the defendant’s liability “to that individual. ” Id. (emphasis added); see also TRW, Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U.S. 19, 22-23 , 122 S.Ct. 441, 444 , 151 L.Ed.2d 339 (2001). Here, no information required to be disclosed was misrepresented, and no representation, false or otherwise, was made to Williams. 1 Thus, the action was untimely.

AFFIRMED.

This disposition is not appropriate for publication and may not be cited to or by the courts of this circuit except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

. Of course, liability may have been incurred, but that could not,…

dissenting.

I cannot join the majority’s opinion. The majority construes 15 U.S.C. § 1681p 1 to mean that appellees County of San Diego and its employee Mike Finch (collectively “San Diego”) cannot be liable to appellant Williams because it did not misrepresent anything to him. But San Diego plainly misrepresented to the credit agencies that it was obtaining Williams’ credit report for employment purposes, and the fact that San Diego obtained the report under this pretense was information required to be disclosed to Williams. I therefore believe that Williams has satisfied the requirements of the misrepresentation exception, Section 1681p, which permits Williams to litigate his false pretenses claim because he brought it within two years after he discovered the misrepresentation. I respectfully dissent.

A. Misrepresentation of Information Required to be Disclosed to Williams

In my view, the majority makes three mistakes in its construction of the statute. First, the majority reads into the statute a requirement that a misrepresentation must have been made to Williams. San Diego acquired Williams’ credit report from Trans Union Credit Agency and Experian (collectively “credit…