No Injury Required to Sue Under Consumer Credit-Check Law

Friday, January 23, 2026

Page 1

Court of Appeal:

No Injury Required to Sue Under Consumer Credit-Check Law

Edmon Says 100-Plus Tenants May Seek $10,000 Each Though Statutory Violations Caused No Monetary Harm

By a MetNews Staff Writer

Three related companies that own apartment buildings face potential liability in excess of $1 million under a decision by the Court of Appeal for this district, based on their failure to convey statutorily required advisements to would-be tenants in connection with their screening process even though the applicants suffered no actual harm.

It was undisputed that defendant Barrington Pacific, LLC and kindred defendants violated California’s Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act (“ICRAA”) by not apprising applicants for tenancy “in writing that an investigative consumer report will be made regarding the consumer’s character, general reputation, personal characteristics, and mode of living,” what outfit would perform the assessment, and of the right to a copy of the credit report.

More than 100 tenants brought individual actions against the Barrington defendants under the ICRAA. Summary judgment was granted in favor of the defendants on Jan. 18, 2024, by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Thomas D. Long.

Statute in Issue

At issue is an interpretation of Civil Code §1786.50(a), which provides:

“An investigative consumer reporting agency or user of information that fails to comply with any requirement under this title with respect to an investigative consumer report is liable to the consumer who is the subject of the report in an amount equal to the sum of all the following: [¶] (1) Any actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or, except in the case of class actions, ten thousand dollars ($10,000), whichever sum is greater.”

As Long viewed that language, it expresses a legislative intent that actual harm be required to confer status to bring suit. He explained:

“The specific use of the term ‘actual damages,’ rather than ‘penalties,’ shows that the statute is intended to compensate for injury, not to punish for violations.”

Tenants’ Contention

The plaintiffs protested on appeal:

“The plain meaning of the phrase ‘[a]ny actual damages...or,...ten thousand dollars ($10,000), whichever sum is greater,’ thus denotes ‘actual damages’ as an alternative to the minimum $10,000 award. Rather than suggesting an intent to require actual damages for both options, the disjunctive nature of the phrase suggests the opposite—that the minimum amount does not require ‘actual damages’ as would be necessary for the alternative actual-damages claim.”

The defendants pointed out:

“None of the Plaintiffs allege that any information included in those reports was inaccurate….All of the Plaintiffs’ rental applications were approved, and all were or currently are Defendants’ tenants.”

They reasoned:

“It makes no difference that the ICRAA allows a plaintiff to recover statutory damages even if she cannot prove any actual damages—the plaintiff still must have an injury in fact in need of compensation, not a claim based on a statutory violation and nothing more. Plaintiffs have never identified any actual or concrete injury caused by the bare alleged procedural violations at issue here. Without any beneficial interest in this litigation, they lack standing to bring their claims.” Presiding Justice Lee Edmon of Div. Three authored the opinion reversing Long as to his disallowance of causes of action under the ICRAA. Rejecting Long’s analysis and embracing that of the plaintiffs, she wrote:

“[W]e conclude that the $10,000 amount operates as an alternative to actual damages and provides standing for plaintiffs to pursue their claims. Whether characterized as statutory damages or a statutory penalty, the $10,000 minimum recovery for an ICRAA violation is punitive and untethered to actual injury.”

Edmon elaborated:

“The statute’s use of the disjunctive ‘or’ between ‘[a]ny actual damages sustained by the consumer and ‘ten thousand dollars ($10,000)’ shows that these remedies are mutually exclusive. The ‘or’ signals that the statutory amount operates as an alternative remedy, a substitute for actual damages or a concrete injury, underscoring its punitive and deterrent nature.”

Fifth District Decision

The presiding justice noted that the defendants, in alleging a lack of standing on the part of the plaintiffs, relied on the Fifth District Court of Appeal’s 2022 decision in Limon v. Circle K Stores Inc. There, Justice Mark W. Snauffer wrote that the plaintiff “has not alleged a concrete or particularized injury to his privacy interests sufficient to afford him an interest in pursuing his claims vigorously” under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”).

The ICRAA and the FCRA were both enacted in 1970.

“Limon does not change our conclusion,” Edmon said, setting forth: “Limon’s analysis rested largely on semantics—namely, the Legislature’s use of ‘damages,’ rather than ‘penalties,’ in the FCRA….

“[T]he semantic distinction between ‘damages’ and ‘penalties’ is not dispositive of standing.”

A distinction between the federal act and the state legislation, she continued, is that “ICRAA was specifically designed to fill the consumer-protection gaps left by the FCRA and empower consumers.”

Edmon added:

“Moreover, while Congress may have sought to approximate actual damages through the FCRA’s range of $100 to $1,000…, that does not appear to be the case for ICRAA since ICRAA’s mandatory recovery is ten times more than FCRA’s maximum.”

Three of the plaintiffs also sued under the Unfair Competition Act, Business & Professions Code §17200 et seq. Edmon said summary judgment in favor of the defendants must stand in connection with claims under that act because actual injury is required for a plaintiff to have standing.

She cited Business & Professions Code §17204, which says that an action may be brought under the act by a private individual only if that person “has suffered injury in fact and has lost money or property as a result of the unfair competition,” and remarked:

“Plaintiffs identify no lost opportunity, adverse action, or financial detriment caused by the timing or absence of the report. Indeed, their applications were approved and they obtained the very housing they sought.”

Edmon declared that “[b]ecause plaintiffs did not lose money or property, and have not shown concrete or particularized injuries arising from the ICRAA violations, they fail to meet the standing requirements of Business and Professions Code section 17204.”

The case is Yeh v. Barrington Pacific, LLC, 2025 S.O.S. 209.

The lead plaintiff, Stacy Kate Yeh, was among those who leased space in the massive 712-unit Barrington Plaza at Wilshire and Barrington in West Los Angeles—which has been embroiled in litigation over massive evictions to facilitate renovations. On appeal is a Los Angeles Superior Court decision in favor of the Barrington Plaza Tenants Association declaring that the apartments were improperly taken off the rental market.