Consumer Law

Recent Opinion In Sloan vs. Equifax

By M. Stan Herring

This opinion from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the arguments of Equifax in this six figure verdict except on two grounds. The emotional distress damages were reduced to $150,000 and the trial court was instructed to conduct a hearing on the attorney's fee award.

A good analysis of the impact of identity theft is provided by Denise Richardson in her fine blog post. We recommend this to your reading. She also has a link to the opinion so you can read it yourself.

While we disagree with the reduction of the emotional distress damages, overall this opinion benefits consumers and for that we are thankful.

1-3-08 Update - we just saw an excellent blog post on this case at the South Carolina Bankruptcy and Consumer Law Blog written by Sheryl Sisk Schelin. We think you will enjoy this excellent post.

Full post as published by Alabama Consumer Blog on January 02, 2008 (boomark / email).