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Heather Gillespie and Angela Cinson v. Trans Union Corporation, a Delaware Corporation

7th CircuitMarch 16, 2007No. 06-2576Cited 31 times
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Case Details

Judge(s)
Posner, Kanne, Evans
Status — whether other courts must follow this ruling
Published
Procedural Posture — the stage the case had reached
appeal

Related Laws

No specific laws identified for this ruling.

Outcome

The court affirmed summary judgment in favor of Trans Union, holding that the FCRA's requirement to disclose information in a consumer's 'file' applies only to information included in consumer reports provided to third parties, not internal purge dates.

What This Ruling Means

**Employment Court Case: Gillespie and Cinson v. Trans Union Corporation** Heather Gillespie and Angela Cinson, two Trans Union employees, sued their employer over how the company handled information in consumer credit files. The workers claimed Trans Union violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by not properly disclosing certain internal information, specifically "purge dates" - dates when information would be removed from files. The court ruled in favor of Trans Union. The judge determined that the FCRA only requires companies to disclose information that actually appears in consumer reports sent to third parties like lenders or employers. Internal tracking information, such as purge dates that help manage when data gets deleted, doesn't need to be disclosed to consumers since it's not included in the actual reports that outside parties receive. **What this means for workers:** This ruling clarifies that credit reporting agencies like Trans Union have different disclosure requirements for different types of information. While companies must share what goes into actual credit reports, they don't have to reveal internal administrative details about how they manage their data systems. Workers should understand that when they request their credit file information, they'll receive what appears in reports sent to others, but not necessarily all internal company records.

This summary was generated to explain the ruling in plain English and is not legal advice.

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