Lawsuit by Identity Theft Victim Held Corporation Accountable for Releasing Personal Financial Information

When Corporations Cheat or Endanger Consumers, the Civil Justice System Holds Them Accountable

Court Blasts Home Depot for Attempting to "Escape the Results of Its Own Carelessness"

California businessman Alan R. Sporn discovered that something was wrong with his credit history when he was rejected for a low-interest loan to re-finance his home. When he looked into the problem, Alan discovered that Home Depot was accessing his credit report monthly and the "inquiries" on his credit report had driven down his FICA score.

Alan's Social Security number had been stolen and was being fraudulently used by someone in Virginia to apply for store credit at Home Depot. Verbally and in writing, Alan told Home Depot someone in Virginia had stolen his identity, and asked the company to stop accessing his credit report. Home Depot ignored Alan for nearly two years, refused to stop the wrongful use of his credit and damage to his credit rating, and even refused to give Alan the information he needed to identify the person who had stolen his identity.

After two years of no response, Alan was forced to file a lawsuit against Home Depot. Home Depot never showed up for any of the court proceedings. A jury awarded, and the court upheld, compensation for Alan for the financial damage done to him by Home Depot.

Home Depot's disregard for Mr. Sporn gets worse. The company never responded to the verdict, so half a year later Alan's attorney was forced to serve the bank that handled Home Depot's payroll with the financial judgment. This got Home Depot's attention – the company's defense lawyers filed an appeal against the verdict and even went as far as to accuse Alan of being underhanded in his dealings with the giant company.

The appeals court upheld the judgment against Home Depot and wrote, "an obvious gap appears in the evidence... there is no statement that the [court papers sent to Home Depot] were lost, stolen, forwarded to the wrong person, or eaten by the dog."

Home Depot's "apparent belief that they can persuade this court to somehow make up for the consequences of their conduct by the excessive use of noxious characterizations to describe the conduct of the plaintiff and his lawyer is mistaken and offensive," the court continued. The court deemed Home Depot's filing "frivolous" and awarded sanctions against Home Depot and in favor of the plaintiff.

In the Stores
Home Depot has also been held accountable by the civil justice system for its practice of stacking merchandise too high on store shelves – heavy merchandise has fallen, killing and injuring customers. In addition, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission brought and won a case against Home Depot for systematically discriminating against its female employees.

Because the civil justice system allows consumers to hold corporations like Home Depot accountable for putting profits before safety, it isn't any surprise that Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli is one of the most outspoken proponents of "tort reform" and a major funder of the campaign to strip Americans of the constitutional right to hold wrongdoers accountable.

By the Numbers
57.7 million: Number of individuals whose personal information was potentially compromised by security breaches in 2005.
[Source: Identity Theft Resource Center]

600: The number of hours an identity theft victim will spend trying to recover from the crime.
[Source: Identity Theft Resource Center]

$1,400: Average out-of-pocket expenses per identity theft victim.
[Source: Identity Theft Resource Center]

In the News
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Home Depot Identity Theft
Los Angeles Times, 2/20/05
"The Laguna Hills businessman's Social Security number was stolen and ended up in a dozen requests for Home Depot credit. The fiasco hurt Sporn's credit rating, but the home-improvement giant that prides itself for customer service brushed off his concerns - until he filed a lawsuit, won and tried to collect from a company bank account. Home Depot then decided to act. It appealed the case, but a California appellate court last week sided with Sporn. 'I feel vindicated,' Sporn, 52, said of his nearly three-year effort to persuade Home Depot to respond. 'They're such a huge corporation, and we are just little people.'"

Laughing Off Victims
Center for American Progress, 12/16/04
"Knight-Ridder reports Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli and President Bush took turns bashing trial lawyers to waves of audience laughter at the White House economic summit yesterday. Nardelli said, 'What you have today is business on one side, and you've got the trial lawyers on the other side. You've got deep pockets colliding with shallow principles.' But if you ask scores of ordinary American shoppers and workers killed or maimed at Home Depot – or hurt by poisonous Home Depot products - they might not think bashing people's legal rights and refusing to protect innocent victims is so funny. As the Atlanta Business Chronicle has reported, Home Depot reported 185 customer injuries a week in 1998 and has since refused media inquiries into its safety record."

© ATLA eNews 2006