LAFAYETTE — A former National Guard soldier is alleging wrongful debt collection.
Matthew Johnson is suing consumer reporting agency and TransUnion LLC and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. He filed a complaint on Aug. 30 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana against the defendants, alleging that they violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff alleges that in 2014, seven years after payment for a drill he did not attend and non-payment for a drill he did attend, he received a letter from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service demanding reimbursement for the 2007 payment. He says he suffered damages and at least one credit denial. The plaintiff holds the defendants responsible because they allegedly failed to properly investigate his dispute of the purported debt.
The plaintiff requests a trial by jury and seeks compensation for actual damages to be determined by jury, plus punitive damages, attorney's fees and litigation expenses. He is represented by David A. Szwak of Bodenheimer, Jones & Szwak LLC in Shreveport.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana Case number 5:16-cv-01240