Key Takeaways
- The Tenth Circuit has joined the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Eleventh Circuits in holding that an FCRA § 1681s-2(b) claim requires the alleged inaccuracy to be objectively and readily verifiable.
- A consumer’s uncorroborated identity-theft assertion, standing alone, cannot support a claim that a furnisher’s investigation under § 1681s-2(b) was unreasonable.
- Because inaccuracy is a threshold legal element of the claim, courts — not juries — decide whether disputed information is objectively verifiable before reaching the reasonableness of the investigation.
- Furnishers facing identity-theft disputes should consider moving for dismissal or summary judgment when resolving the dispute would require crediting the consumer’s account over contrary objective evidence.
On July 20, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held in Ward v. National Credit Systems, Inc. that reported information is actionably “inaccurate” under the Fair Credit Reporting Act’s (FCRA’s) furnisher-investigation provision, 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b), only if the alleged inaccuracy is “objectively and readily verifiable” as containing a mistake or error — joining the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Eleventh Circuits. The decision is significant for furnishers facing identity-theft disputes: A consumer’s uncorroborated fraud assertion cannot support an unreasonable investigation claim.
The plaintiff alleged his daughter used his Social Security number and driver’s license without permission to secure an apartment lease in Texas. When his daughter failed to pay rent, the landlord obtained a default judgment against the plaintiff and assigned the debt to National Credit Systems (NCS), which reported the delinquent account to credit reporting agencies. The plaintiff disputed the debt as identity theft, submitting an FTC report, identification documents and evidence that he lived in Colorado. NCS investigated but concluded that the information was accurate because the plaintiff’s driver’s license and Social Security number matched the lease documents, and his daughter worked at the employer listed on the application.
The plaintiff sued under § 1681s-2(b) for failure to conduct a reasonable investigation. In a motion for summary judgment, NCS argued that the plaintiff’s claim raised a legal dispute and thus failed to allege a cognizable inaccuracy. The district court allowed the inaccuracy question to go to the jury, which returned a verdict for the plaintiff and awarded $500,000 in damages. NCS appealed.
The Tenth Circuit reversed, holding that inaccuracy is a threshold legal element of a § 1681s-2(b) claim — a consumer must show that the furnished information was “in fact inaccurate or incomplete” before the reasonableness of the investigation is relevant. Joining four other circuits, the court held that “reported information is actionably ‘inaccurate’ only if that information is objectively and readily verifiable by the furnisher as containing a mistake or error.”
The court did not adopt a bright-line rule limiting actionable inaccuracies to purely factual or transcription errors. Legal and factual disputes can be actionable if objectively and readily verifiable. But disputes requiring “credibility determinations,” “quasi-discovery” or resolution of “unsettled questions of law” fall outside the standard. Because inaccuracy is a threshold element, the court resolved this question as a matter of law.
The court held that the plaintiff’s identity-theft dispute was not objectively and readily verifiable. NCS would have had to take the plaintiff “at his word” that he was not complicit in his daughter’s fraud. The objective evidence pointed toward the plaintiff’s connection to the debt, and whether he bore responsibility presented an “unsettled legal question,” not a verifiable fact.
The court relied on a decision from the Eleventh Circuit, in which a consumer’s FBI victim report did not render his claimed innocence objectively and readily verifiable because “fraud schemes are often complex and sifting perpetrator from victim is no easy process.” The court distinguished cases such as Paulino v. W. Funding II Inc., in which the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida held that a mismatched Social Security number provided objective, verifiable proof untethering the consumer from the disputed debt.
The decision reinforces a growing circuit consensus that strengthens a furnisher’s ability to obtain dismissal of § 1681s-2(b) claims. Furnishers facing FCRA claims premised on a consumer’s identity-theft dispute should move for dismissal or summary judgment when resolving the alleged inaccuracy would require crediting the consumer’s uncorroborated account over contrary objective evidence.