
Librarian wins surprise judgement against Equifax in small claims court - ilamont
https://vtdigger.org/2018/06/12/randolph-librarian-wins-surprise-judgement-equifax/
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jessamyn
I was happy with how this went and the coverage has been nice.

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alex_young
Good for you!

I'm interested in your perspective on the small claims route vs. class action.

It seems like a class action suit has the potential to have a larger impact on
Equifax since the size of it would be so large, but it's sad to see individual
amounts so low in most of them.

~~~
freeopinion
It would be so much more gratifying to see 50000 people sue individually and
have Equifax have to staff 50000 individual cases. They could choose to defend
for more than $5K per case win or lose, or they could just pay out $5K to each
litigant.

Equifax would beg for a class action where they get off for $500/litigant + a
couple million to the winning attorneys.

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acchow
> Equifax would beg for a class action where they get off for $500/litigant +
> a couple million to the winning attorneys.

But this plaintiff only got $600

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jessamyn
And they had to send a lawyer from Atlanta to Vermont which probably at least
tripled that. Not saying it's not small change, just saying there are other
costs.

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kolpa
The crux:

> Lewis issued a court order that found West was owed money to cover the cost
> of up to two years of payments to online identity protection services

So Equifax was liable for the insurance/protection that West bought out of
fear for her financial safety. This is a fascinating solution to the problem
that general plaintiff cannot sue until after they have provable harm. Instead
of waiting for a rare $XXX loss and then suing for recovery, many plaintiffs
can pay $X for insurance/protection and then sue for that cost.

~~~
rectang
From what I understand, this is a difficult claim to sustain because it can be
argued as speculative. (See Jessamyn's own writeup.)

Would it be stronger to pay for credit freezes and then sue to get that money
back? And would it still take a multi-thousand-dollar chunk out of Equifax to
respond?

~~~
thesagan
In this specific sense I’m not sure that the insurance itself is considered
speculative, but merely a way to minimize/manage the possibility of potential
damages in a reasonable way.

If I’m not mistaken, her write up addresses speculation as potential damages
as estimated _before_ they could be realized in an uninsured situation, or
otherwise taken up by insurers themselves.

The insurance is another thing altogether—a tool to mitigate that real and
known risk right now.

(I’m on mobile so I only glanced at her post.)

That said, IANAL or an actuary.

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rectang
> _“I would go to dinner and they would say ‘Equifax! Crazy! Nothing you can
> do,’” she recalled._

Exactly what we hear around here, too.

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craftyguy
She only won compensation for identity insurance she had paid for. So, TBH,
unless folks are willing to pay for identity insurance and give a lot of
personal information to yet another damn company, there's still nothing the
rest of us can do that don't want to do that other than wait around for our
identity is stolen so we can sue for damages..

Edit: if you disagree, I'd love to hear how we can hit back. Because I've not
found a way, nor seen anyone else do so in a way that doesn't require what
West did in this article (paying for some service).

Edit2: I misunderstood, she did not have to pay for insurance to win.

~~~
jessamyn
I know this is nitpicking but I did not pay for any identity insurance. I said
that if I had to, it would cost this amount and offered low end and high end
costs for this. The judge decided to add these numbers together as if I had
paid for it and awarded that to me (and I was clear about this in court, I did
not fudge it to make it look like I had paid)

~~~
insulanus
Thank you. That is really important information; it means some justice can be
had without paying back into the very industry that caused the mess in the
first place.

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ggg9990
The use of the word “librarian” here seems designed to evoke stereotypes of a
short old computer illiterate lady who fought The Man and won. Jessamyn West
is not that kind of librarian — see her Wikipedia bio for more detail.

It would be not more accurate but perhaps more clear to say “Well-known author
and activist wins case against Equifax.”

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windows_tips
Libraries were computerized long ago. Why would you have a stereotype of "a
short old computer illiterate lady"?

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corobo
Honestly I had that stereotype loaded in mind myself too. I think it's
probably because I've not been in a library since the days of librarians being
short old computer illiterate people

All my book needs were digitised long before our local library caught up, and
then of course Amazon happened

~~~
windows_tips
How old are you?

~~~
corobo
30 on the dot this year

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brownbat
Kudos.

The award seems familiar... a year of lifelock and identity protection, with
other future damages still too speculative.

Is lifelock sufficient to prevent malfeasance from stolen SSNs?

I honestly don't know how effective it is, but it is part of the default post
breach response.

If it is sufficient, maybe the SSA should just be responsible for providing
the equivalent to everyone. That way we can stop expecting unprotectable data
to be protected. (Not to let Equifax off the hook, they were the point of
failure in this case, but the system is also broken in aggregate.)

Or, if lifelock doesn't work, we should stop pretending it does, and not be
satisfied with it as a post breach measure, and not waste money on it either.

Maybe SSA needs to ultimately move to some asymmetric solution like Estonia
has. They've had a few bumps with that, but they're trying, and in comparison,
we have basically no reasonable answer for situations that require revocation
or private/public solutions. (Ie, your public SSN is the last four digits, and
your private SSN is shared with almost everyone you transact with. Recommend a
system like that to anyone studying information theory and you will get a
drink thrown in your face.)

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URSpider94
Note, she won $5000, based on what she would have paid to subscribe to a raft
of identity protection services. She did not in fact have to subscribe to any
of those services to receive the award (and she stated elsewhere in this
thread that she didn't do so).

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paulcole
For anyone who doesn't know who Jessamyn West is:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessamyn_West_(librarian)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessamyn_West_\(librarian\))

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bthrm
So it’s not “a librarian”, but someone with lots of money, education,
connections, time...

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jessamyn
Sometimes librarians are also those things.

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bthrm
The title makes it sound like she’s some random Joe. Random Joes don’t have
Wikipedia entries.

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dahart
Jessamyn isn’t a random Joe. But any random Joe can in fact make a Wikipedia
entry, as long as it comes with verifiable facts, that’s kind of the point of
Wikipedia.

There are almost a million pages for living people, according to this
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Living_people](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Living_people)
They’re not all famous, they just usually have publications by them or about
them.

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icebraining
That's what I wish Wikipedia was, but unfortunately it's not so:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(people...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_\(people\))

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SilasX
The floodgates to open soon?

>Though it’s unclear whether Equifax’s bottom line is being affected, news
agencies across the country have reported a flurry of class action lawsuits
and small claims court cases against the company in recent months. A Stanford
University student made headlines nationwide when he created an online
application that streamlined the process to file against the company, and some
cases reportedly have been resolved against the company for up to $10,000
each.

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syshum
Dont worry, if it ever does effect equifax's bottom line the government will
just award them more contracts....

Equifax is "too big to fail" and the government will ensure it does not

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NickM
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The phrase "too big to fail" referred to the
idea that certain banks are so big that their failure would severely damage
the economy, to the point that it was worth propping them up at all costs.
Equifax is just a credit reporting agency though, and they're not the only big
one that exists, so I doubt the loss of Equifax would cause enough collateral
damage to justify a government intervention.

~~~
Falkon1313
Don't be so sure of not being so sure about that. The banks that got bailed
out certainly weren't the only ones that existed, and in fact there were many
more back then than there are now since they used the bailouts to buyout their
competition. There are only 3 big 'just a credit reporting agency' megacorps
and few smaller contenders. Given that our entire economy now is so heavily
driven by debt and credit, it's not a stretch at all to consider that someone
could be convinced that it's dangerous to the balance of power and to the
economy in general to let one of the Big 3 go under.

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lifeisstillgood
The plaintiff (librarian) has a write up here -
[https://medium.com/@jessamyn/equifax-statement-for-small-
cla...](https://medium.com/@jessamyn/equifax-statement-for-small-claims-
court-780d2608e752) and interestingly says they probably would have been
better off if they had paid for credit monitoring and then asking for those
dollars back.

I do pay for that ... hmmm ...

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jacob019
Winning is one thing collecting is another. I wouldn't be surprised if Equifax
appeals and she never gets paid. I hope she does though!

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jessamyn
They sent me a W-9 to fill out. I think they might actually pay.

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tonyztan
I won against them in small claims in Atlanta, and they sent me a W-9. I
refused to fill it out and they still paid, after I got a court order
approving a lien against their property. The judgment was for less than $200
though.

(17MS094034, Fulton County Magistrate Court, Georgia.)

~~~
jessamyn
How badass is that?

~~~
tonyztan
:)

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xkcd-sucks
Wonder how it affected her credit rating

~~~
jessamyn
So far it is holding firm in the 800+ range. This was part of my deal, my
credit rating is GOOD and I'd like to hold on to it.

~~~
craftyguy
How do others follow in your footsteps, if that's at all possible? IMHO
winning a battle is exciting, but teaching others to win more battles is
essential to winning the war.

~~~
jessamyn
I feel like a lot of it is changing the discussion. Like not everyone has the
money, time and effort to be able to do a small claims thing, but there are a
lot of things you can do. Teaching people to pull their credit reports,
teaching them about risk assessment (I talk briefly about threat models when I
do an online privacy talk at public libraries and I think it's useful to help
people figure out "where do I fit into all this?") and how to get more
information that they can trust.

And, for this audience especially, try to be supportive and helpful getting
people to figure out how to keep their information _more_ private in a way
that works for them. Most people aren't techie and that's OK and is going to
stay that way. Help them be better at the things they need to do, with good,
well-sourced information, don't just holler at them because they write
passwords down or don't know the different between their Apple ID and their
laptop login. Encourage them to look at the structures that underlie the
systems that they use every day (frex: Google is the world's largest
advertising agency and that should figure in to personal decisions about how
much to interact with them).

Above all, don't just bitch on the internet! I mean, sure do some of that, but
that should be the beginning of your work to try to help yourself and other
people deal with the situations we're in, not the end.

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jimhefferon
Nice. Very Vermonty.

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spraak
Not to say one is better than another, but this guy got $7990 from his case
[https://blog.legalist.com/i-won-8-000-from-equifax-in-
small-...](https://blog.legalist.com/i-won-8-000-from-equifax-in-small-claims-
court-heres-how-you-can-too-f0ce6925c079)

~~~
craftyguy
Sure, but the most important thing here is sticking it to equifax one way or
another. They've yet to pay in any meaningful way for their fiasco (put nicely
and shit).

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mxuribe
I love it when "the little guy/girl" wins!

So, maybe this is a good strategy to put these big firms on notice:

1\. Exert plenty of PR pressure to broadcast the wrong that big firm did.

2\. Launch tons of small claims court cases.

3\. Firms lose money flying paralegals (or other legal staff) around the
country for small claims court appearances.

4\. Or, these firms lose money paying out all these awards at small claims
court.

5\. Congress - seeing this widespread ire/angst and related court action -
springs into action legislatively, and enacts laws to better protect citizens.

LOL ok maybe that's too fantastically fictional. ;-)

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bilbo0s
"...5. Congress - seeing this widespread ire/angst and related court action -
springs into action legislatively, and enacts laws to better protect
citizens...."

...or they spring into action to enact laws to better protect Equifax.

Which do you think is more likely?

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sattoshi
Why would Congress do either of those things? Isn't it the judicial system
working as intended?

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__jal
> Isn't it the judicial system working as intended?

If you're a large firm who makes money by gossiping about people, you might be
very concerned about it working as intended. They've successfully lobbied for
an exception to libel law so you can't sue them for telling lies about you;
buying a congressional pass as proof against this sort of responsibility is
hardly a stretch.

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nvr219
Nice one!

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itissid
Equifax is one of those companies that had a shitty solution to a really
important problem. Its like a parasite sucking up money and from its host and
not giving any thing to it except a headache. Somehow people in multinational
consumer companies and Credit Cards think this parasite should be allowed to
exist. Its worth killing this parasite if only to gain a small shot at
rethinking the solution to this important problem.

~~~
kolpa
Why are companies paying Equifax if it isn't providing value to them?

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rectang
Equifax provides plenty of value to companies. The problem is that their
business model creates massive negative externalities which are borne by
individuals who have no business relationship with them. Equifax is analogous
to a gross polluter.

