Eighth Circuit Confirms Limits On FCRA Furnisher Duties In Late-Payment Dispute Against Mortgage Servicer

The Eighth Circuit’s decision in Johnson v. Freedom Mortgage Corp. (Feb. 2, 2026) narrows consumers’ ability to challenge “late” reporting where the payment was not conforming and clarifies that a furnisher’s FCRA investigation duties are tightly cabined by the CRA’s dispute description.

Core holding and facts

• Borrowers mailed a cashier’s check before the due date but did not include the mortgage loan number, contrary to the servicer’s written instructions in the welcome letter and monthly statements.

• Because the check was not properly identifiable, the servicer did not timely apply it, and the May 1 installment was not credited until June 9, more than 30 days past due.

• The servicer reported a 30‑day late; borrowers disputed with CRAs using short, generic letters claiming simply that they had made all payments on time, without referencing the cashier’s check or the payment‑application issue.

• After the ACDV, the servicer reviewed account history, payment history, and account notes (including a prior call with the borrowers) and verified the 30‑day late to the CRAs.

• The district court granted summary judgment for the servicer; the Eighth Circuit affirmed.

Limits on “accuracy” challenges

• The court held the tradeline was accurate under FCRA because the payment was not conforming and could not reasonably be tied to the account, so the loan was in fact over 30 days past due when the payment was finally credited.

• The panel rejected the notion that mailing funds before the due date, standing alone, makes reporting a delinquency inaccurate if the consumer failed to follow clear remittance instructions.​

• Borrowers’ argument that the welcome‑letter payment instructions were ambiguous was deemed forfeited because it had not been raised below.

Scope of furnisher investigation duties

• The court emphasized that § 1681s‑2(b) duties are “triggered and defined” by the CRA’s notice; a furnisher “need investigate only what it learned about the nature of the dispute from the description in the [CRA’s] notice of dispute.”

• Here, the dispute was generic—“I’ve made all of my payments on time”—with no details about the contested payment, method, or alleged misapplication, so a targeted review of account and payment history and notes was sufficient.

• The court contrasted cases finding investigations unreasonable where furnishers did little more than confirm their own data and instead noted that the servicer here pulled account‑level documentation and confirmed dates and status; “its duties as a furnisher of information under the FCRA required no more.”

• Arguments that FCRA imposed heightened accuracy or investigation obligations in this context were rejected, and the court declined to require an “open‑ended” probe beyond the scope of the CRA’s dispute description.

Practical implications for furnishers and litigators

• Payments: Servicers can accurately report a 30‑day delinquency where a payment is untimely applied because the consumer did not comply with clear, written payment‑identification instructions, even if funds were mailed before the due date.

• Dispute content: Sparse, conclusory disputes sent to CRAs narrow the scope of what constitutes a “reasonable investigation”; detailed ACDV narratives from CRAs could, conversely, expand what is required.

• Process expectations: A documented review of account history, payment records, and contemporaneous notes that tracks the ACDV description will often suffice at the summary‑judgment stage in the Eighth Circuit.

• Appellate preservation: The opinion underscores the need to raise “ambiguous instructions” or similar contract‑interpretation theories in the district court, or they will be unavailable to bootstrap an FCRA inaccuracy argument on appeal.