From today's decision by Judge Joseph Goodwin (S.D. W. Va.) in Doe v. Evident ID Inc.:
Plaintiff brings suit pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) against Defendants Evident ID Inc. and MRI Software LLC, two consumer reporting agencies (CRAs), alleging violations of the FCRA's requirement that CRAs "follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual about whom the report relates." While Plaintiff has no outstanding convictions on his record, in early 2022 Defendants provided Plaintiff's prospective employers with background reports that inaccurately showed that Plaintiff was convicted of felonies. In fact, although Plaintiff was charged with felonies in the past, those charges were dismissed in 2019. According to Plaintiff, he has never been adjudicated guilty of any felonies, and the background reports reflect additional inaccurate charges. Plaintiff states that Defendants' inaccurate background reports directly caused him to lose multiple employment opportunities.
Plaintiff sued under the pseudonym "John Doe" to avoid risking further harm to his employment prospects. He argues that while his criminal charges will eventually be removed from his report per the FCRA, to remedy the current inaccuracies and protect his rights, he "must commence [this] lawsuit that has the effect of etching his criminal charges into the public record." Revealing his identity in this lawsuit, he argues, would expose him to social stigma and a significant impairment of his employment possibilities. He seeks an order protecting his anonymity, or in the alternative, a protective order which would require any reference to his true identity or identifying information to be filed under seal.
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require that the identities of the parties to a case be disclosed. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(a) ("The title of the complaint must name all the parties …."). When a party seeks to litigate under a pseudonym, the court "has an independent obligation to ensure that extraordinary circumstances support such a request by balancing the party's stated interest in anonymity against the public's interest in openness and any prejudice that anonymity would pose to the opposing party." … [A]llowing a party to proceed using a pseudonym is a "rare dispensation" because pseudonymous litigation undermines the openness of judicial proceedings and the public's right of access to proceedings.
I do not find that there are extraordinary circumstances here that justify allowing the Plaintiff to proceed pseudonymously.
