Varlack v. TD Bank North
- Laura Swain
- 1:23-cv-07216
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 5
In Varlack v. TD Bank, Judge Swain dismissed FCRA claims for inadequate allegations and declined state-law jurisdiction, while allowing a new federal action.
Tynearia Asia Varlack’s FCRA claims were dismissed without prejudice, and the court declined to consider her possible state-law claims. TD BANK, JP MORGAN CHASE, EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS, and CHEX SYSTEMS were defendants in the dismissed action.
What happened
In Varlack v. TD Bank, Tynearia Asia Varlack amended her complaint against TD Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Early Warning Systems, and Chex Systems. She alleged that the defendants reported fraudulent accounts and failed to correct them after her disputes.
The court dismissed her claims under the Fair Credit Reporting Act because she did not clearly allege that a credit-reporting agency notified a furnisher about her dispute. Those federal claims were dismissed without prejudice, meaning she may reassert them in a new civil action after meeting the stated requirements.
Judge Swain declined to consider any state-law claims after dismissing the federal claims, dismissed the action, directed entry of judgment, and denied fee-free appeal status because an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Varlack v. TD Bank North · No. 1:23-cv-07216
- Laura Swain
- Jan. 2, 2024
Background
Tynearia Asia Varlack proceeded without a lawyer and without prepaying filing fees. In an earlier order, the court dismissed her federal constitutional claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for failure to state a claim and gave her 60 days to amend her complaint to allege a claim under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), a federal statute governing consumer credit reporting.
Varlack’s amended complaint named TD BANK, JP MORGAN CHASE, EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS, and CHEX SYSTEMS. She alleged that accounts were fraudulent and had not been opened by her, that she disputed the accounts with TD Bank and credit-reporting agencies, and that the accounts continued to be reported. She sought damages for alleged willful violations, identity theft, stress, defamation, and harm to her credit history.
FCRA claims
The court construed the amended complaint as asserting claims under Section 1681s-2(b) of the FCRA. That provision can require a furnisher of credit information to investigate and correct inaccurate information after receiving notice of a consumer dispute from a consumer-reporting agency. The court had previously explained that a consumer’s direct notice to a furnisher is not enough for a private claim under that provision.
The court found that the amended complaint did not clearly allege either that Varlack reported the inaccuracies to a consumer-reporting agency or that a consumer-reporting agency notified a defendant that furnished credit information. Instead, the allegations appeared to state that Varlack reported the inaccuracies directly to the defendants. The court therefore dismissed the FCRA claims for failure to state a claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), but without prejudice to reasserting them in a new civil action after satisfying the stated requirements.
State-law claims and disposition
The court stated that it could decline supplemental jurisdiction, meaning jurisdiction over related state-law claims, after dismissing all claims within its original federal jurisdiction. It declined to consider any state-law claims Varlack might be asserting.
The court dismissed the action and directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment. It also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that an appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied Varlack fee-free appeal status for that purpose. Judge Laura Taylor Swain signed the order.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.