Lindsey Involved in Federal Case

Lindsey Management Co. of Fayetteville was recently sued in Washington County Circuit Court by a former tenant who is protesting the company’s “liquidated damages,” a lease provision giving the real estate company the right to assess three month’s rent if a tenant leaves the apartment before the lease ends.

The case comes out of The Parks complex in Fayetteville, and the complaint was filed by Legal Aid of Arkansas. Lindsey has yet to respond to the complaint. Meanwhile, a much larger case is unfolding in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, where Lindsey is being sued by a husband and wife who in 2012 applied for Lindsey jobs in Texarkana.

In the federal case, brought by the Sanford Law Firm of Little Rock and filed as a putative class action, the real estate company is accused of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act “by procuring consumer reports on plaintiffs and other putative class members for employment purposes, without first making proper disclosures in the format required by FCRA.”

Lindsey, of course, denies the accusation. According to plaintiff’s attorney Josh Sanford, however, the two sides did agree on one thing: the case should be put on ice until another case is decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

There, the justices have been asked to consider Spokeo Inc. vs. Thomas Robins, a case that bubbled up out of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals out west. At issue is the credit reporting act — the same act at issue in the Lindsey case — and whether Spokeo violated it when the people-search engine produced erroneous personal and financial information about Robins.

The case was heard by the high court on Nov. 2, but a decision might not be issued until as late as the end of June, according to the court’s clerk.