Barrington Pacific, LLC (Barrington) and its related entities own and operate multiple apartment complexes across Los Angeles, all managed under a centralized process. Id. at *3. Prospective tenants were required to complete a standardized rental application, authorize background screening, and pay a nonrefundable $41.50 application fee. Id. at *4. That fee was expressly allocated to obtaining credit reports, eviction histories, and resident screening reports, as well as processing internal costs. Id. Each applicant signed a written authorization permitting Barrington to obtain background information “including, but not limited to, resident screening and credit checking.” Id.

Between November 2020 and July 2022, more than 100 applicants, who were ultimately approved as tenants, filed individual lawsuits alleging Barrington violated the ICRAA’s disclosure requirements. Id. The alleged violations were procedural in nature, including failure to provide plaintiffs with a means of requesting a copy of such reports, failure to identify the consumer reporting agency, failure to disclose the scope of the investigative consumer reports procured, and failure to offer or provide copies of the reports. Id. at *4-5. Notably, no plaintiff alleged inaccurate information, denial of housing, identity theft, or any adverse consequence whatsoever. Id. at *7. Three plaintiffs also asserted UCL claims premised on the same alleged ICRAA violations. Id. at *5.

After the cases were related and consolidated, with Yeh designated as the lead action, Barrington moved for summary judgment. Id. at *5. Barrington argued that plaintiffs lacked standing because they could not show concrete injury, relying heavily on Limon v. Circle K Stores Inc., 84 Cal.App.5th 671 (2002), which held that uninjured plaintiffs lack standing under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when claims are based solely on statutory violations. The trial court agreed, concluding that the ICRAA’s $10,000 provision did not create standing through statutory penalty and that plaintiffs suffered no harm because they became tenants and alleged no inaccuracies in any of the information Barrington had. Id. at *6-7. Summary judgment was entered for Barrington on both the ICRAA and UCL claims. Id. at *6.

The California Court of Appeal’s Decision

The Court of Appeal reversed as to the ICRAA, holding plaintiffs need not prove actual harm to bring an ICRAA claim. Id. at *25. Central to the Court of Appeal’s analysis was Civil Code section 1786.50(a)(1), which permits recovery of “[a]ny actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or, except in the case of class actions, ten thousand dollars ($10,000), whichever sum is greater.” Id. at *19. Emphasizing the disjunctive “or,” the Court of Appeal concluded that actual damages and the $10,000 amount are alternative remedies, not cumulative or interdependent. Id. at *20. The Court of Appeal relied on a line of recent California decisions recognizing that statutory schemes may confer standing through statutory damages or penalties untethered from actual harm. It cited Chai v. Velocity Investments, LLC, 108 Cal.App.5th 1030 (2025), Guracar v. California Capital Insurance Co., 111 Cal.App.5th 337 (2024), and Kashanian v. National Enterprise Systems, Inc., 114 Cal.App.5th 1037 (2025), each of which held that statutory damages provisions create standing even where plaintiffs admit no concrete injury. Id. at *11-16. Like those statutes, the ICRAA creates informational rights and attaches a fixed monetary consequence to their violation in order to punish and deter noncompliance. Id. at *18.

The Court of Appeal expressly declined to follow Limon, explaining that its reasoning was tied to the FCRA’s distinct statutory language and federal Article III standing concerns. See Limon, supra, 84 Cal.App.5th at 700-03. The Court of Appeal reasoned that the legislative materials make clear that the “ICRAA was designed to overcome the FCRA’s practical limitations by ensuring that consumers could obtain a nontrivial recovery and thus would be motivated to enforce ICRAA, even when actual damages were nonexistent.” Id. at *24-25. Legislative history also showed the California Legislature intentionally set a minimum recovery, which was $300 in 1975 and has since been increased to $10,000, to incentivize enforcement and compliance. Id. at *25. Of note, opponents of the ICRAA’s enactment criticized the statute precisely because it would impose liability “without regard to whether the individual has ever suffered damages,” further confirming that this result was not accidental but deliberate. Id. at *24.

The Court’s Reasoning on the UCL Claims

Where the opinion strongly favors the defense bar is its treatment of the UCL claims, the Court of Appeal affirmed summary adjudication, holding that Business and Professions Code section 17204 requires injury in fact and loss of money or property, regardless of whether the predicate statute allows recovery without harm. Id. at *31-32. Relying on cases such as Peterson v. Cellco Partnership, 164 Cal.App.4th 1583 (2008), the Court of Appeal reiterated that private UCL standing demands real economic injury. Id. at *31. Per Peterson, a private plaintiff must make a twofold showing: “he or she must demonstrate injury in fact and a loss of money or property caused by unfair competition.” Peterson, 164 Cal.App.4th at 1590.

Here, the Plaintiffs’ theory that the $41.50 application fee constituted lost money failed outright. Id. at *32. They argued that they were harmed because they were required to pay for a report that they were not given a copy of. Id. The Court of Appeal disagreed – the rental application described how the $41.50 non-refundable processing fee would be used to screen applicants with respect to their credit history and other background information. Id. Moreover, the application broke down the elements of the $41.50 fee: $22.99 for credit and screening reports, and $18.51 in costs, including overhead and soft costs, related to the processing of the application. Id. Since the application did not suggest that the $41.50 fee was for a consumer report to be provided to the applicant, the Court of Appeal determined that Plaintiffs received precisely what they paid for: the processing and consideration of their rental applications, which resulted in their approval as tenants. Id. at *32-33. Finally, any failure to provide plaintiffs with copies of their consumer reports within three days also does not constitute an injury because plaintiffs failed to allege any concrete or particularized harm as a result of the delay. Id. at *33.

The Court of Appeal emphasized that applicants paid for screening and processing, received exactly that, and were approved as tenants. Id. The alleged failure to timely provide copies of reports did not deprive plaintiffs of property, cause lost opportunities, or result in financial harm. Id. Technical noncompliance alone was not enough.

Implications for Companies

The takeaway here is twofold.

First, Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies (ICRAs) under the ICRAA, loosely defined as any person who, for compensation, gathers or communicates information regarding a consumer’s character, reputation, or personal characteristics, usually obtained through extensive, often more personal investigative methods — such as interviews or public record checks — should carefully audit ICRAA disclosures as plaintiffs can proceed without needing to prove actual harm. This decision underscores the ICRAA as a strict liability statute with teeth, and technical compliance matters even when no one is harmed.

Second, this case confirms that California courts remain unwilling to dilute UCL standing requirements. Even in an era of expansive statutory enforcement, courts continue to draw a hard line against no injury, no loss UCL claims. This ruling provides powerful authority to limit exposure by cutting off UCL claims early where plaintiffs cannot show injury in fact and a loss of money or property.