Summary:
Judge Schroeder’s September 30, 2025 portrait of the property report as a CRA in Joyce v. First American Mortgage Solutions, LLC (No. 1:23-cv-1069) denied the defendant’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, allowing a Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) claim to proceed where a “Property Report” combined another consumer’s judgments with the plaintiff’s file and was then used by a lender to deny him a loan.
And "yes i said yes I will yes"—perhap because the plaintiff’s name really is James Joyce— while the complaint and claims read a bit like Ulysses: full of detail, meandering through definitions and disclaimers, they were ultimately coherent enough to survive dismissal.
Background:
Joyce applied for a debt-consolidation loan with Members Credit Union. At the credit union’s request, First American Mortgage Solutions prepared and sold a “Property Report.” The report—supposedly about the borrower’s property—listed judgments against “James Joyce d/b/a AMPM Appliance” and “James F. Joyce,” neither of whom were the plaintiff. The credit union, seeing those supposed debts, denied the application.
Joyce sued under 15 U.S.C. §1681e(b), alleging that First American failed to follow “reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy.”
The Court’s Ruling:
First American argued that the report wasn’t a “consumer report” because it was about property, not personal creditworthiness, and that its End User License Agreement (EULA) expressly disclaimed any FCRA use. Judge Schroeder wasn’t persuaded.
Taking the allegations as true, the court found the complaint plausibly alleged that:
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The report contained personal information (judgments and liens attributed to “James Joyce”);
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It was prepared for a lender in direct response to a credit application; and
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The lender actually used it in deciding to deny credit.
The court refused to consider First American’s attached EULA and “title abstract,” holding they were neither integral to nor authenticated within the pleadings. Even if they had been, disclaimers cannot defeat plausible allegations of intent. As Judge Schroeder noted, citing Kidd v. Thomson Reuters Corp., “an entity may not escape regulation as a ‘consumer reporting agency’ by merely disclaiming an intent to furnish ‘consumer reports.’”
Commentary:
Judge Schroeder stopped short of declaring all property reports “consumer reports,” but left open that possibility depending on how they are used. That uncertainty should prompt both lenders and vendors to revisit their compliance policies.
And if the irony of a plaintiff named James Joyce alleging that his credit file was “mixed” isn’t poetic enough—consider this case a reminder that the FCRA, like modernist literature, demands attention to detail. One might even say that this decision brings stream-of-consciousness to the stream of commerce.
Practical Implications:
Judge Schroeder’s opinion continues the recent Middle District trend (see Keller v. Experian I and II) that focuses on the real-world use of a report, not its label. If a report—whether called a “title search,” “property profile,” or “data supplement”—is used to assess a consumer’s credit eligibility, it may fall under the FCRA.
For consumer practitioners, Joyce reminds us that:
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“Mixed file” errors remain actionable, even when made by secondary data vendors;
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Mortgage-related data companies can be “consumer reporting agencies” if their reports influence credit decisions; and
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EULAs and disclaimers can’t contract around statutory duties.
For creditors, the takeaway is straightforward: if you use such reports in deciding whether to extend credit, you assume FCRA compliance risk—no matter how the vendor markets it.
And while Joyce involved a straightforward consumer loan, its reasoning has implications far beyond. In North Carolina’s Loss Mitigation/Mortgage Modification (LMM) Programs—available in the Eastern, Middle, and Western Bankruptcy Courts—mortgage servicers and their vendors routinely generate “property verification,” “valuation,” or “title update” reports as part of the modification process.
If those reports contain personally identifiable credit information (e.g., judgments, liens, prior bankruptcies) and are used to determine a debtor’s eligibility for a modification or short refinance, they could meet the FCRA’s definition of a “consumer report.”
The FCRA applies to any “communication of information by a consumer reporting agency bearing on a consumer’s creditworthiness, credit standing, or capacity,” used or expected to be used to determine credit eligibility. 15 U.S.C. §1681a(d)(1). A mortgage modification is an extension of credit. Thus:
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Servicers that request or rely on such reports in deciding whether to offer modification terms are “using” consumer reports;
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Vendors that compile and sell those reports to servicers could qualify as “consumer reporting agencies”; and
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Debtors denied modifications due to inaccurate entries (e.g., misattributed judgments, erroneous liens, or mistaken prior foreclosures) might assert FCRA claims akin to Joyce.
Even within bankruptcy, where the LMM process is court-supervised, the fact that servicers use these reports to make credit determinations may implicate the FCRA’s procedural and accuracy requirements—especially when those same reports later form the basis for Rule 3002.1 payment changes, escrow recalculations, or denials of post-petition loss mitigation.
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