# Opinion

> District Court, M.D. North Carolina · October 14, 2025

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11170416

## Case

- **Full name:** Charles Edward Brown v. First Advantage Background Services Corp. and Ashcott, LLC
- **Court:** District Court, M.D. North Carolina
- **Decided:** October 14, 2025
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

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## Opinion text

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA

CHARLES EDWARD BROWN, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
v. ) 1:23cv195
)
FIRST ADVANTAGE BACKGROUND )
SERVICES CORP. and ASHCOTT, )
LLC, )
)
Defendants. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
THOMAS D. SCHROEDER, District Judge.
This matter is before the court following the court’s request
that Plaintiff Charles Edward Brown file supplemental briefing on
his request for damages against Defendant Ashcott, LLC
(“Ashcott”). Previously, the court granted Brown’s motion for
default judgment against Ashcott as to liability under the Fair
Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq., but it
denied the motion without prejudice as to damages. (See Doc. 103.)
Brown has filed the supplemental briefing to support his request
for at least $100,000 in damages. (Doc. 108.) For the reasons
that follow, Brown’s motion for default judgment as to damages
will be granted in part and denied in part.
I. BACKGROUND
In December 2022, Brown applied for a full-time position as
a long-haul truck driver with FedEx via a third-party vendor, FXG
Vendor J D SR Trucking, Inc. (“FXG”). (Doc. 42 ¶ 46.) Through
FXG, FedEx offered the job to Brown with a start date in January
2023. (Id. ¶ 50.) FedEx conditioned the job offer on Brown’s

successful completion of a background check. (Id.)
FXG contracted with Defendant First Advantage Background
Services Corporation (“First Advantage”) to conduct background
checks for prospective employees. (Id. ¶ 52.) Moreover, First
Advantage retained Ashcott to perform the criminal records
searches for its background check reports. (Id. ¶ 71.)
Accordingly, in December 2022, FXG ordered First Advantage to
conduct a criminal background check on Brown, and First Advantage
then purchased background reports on Brown’s criminal history from
Ashcott (Id. ¶¶ 71, 73). Ashcott searched the court records in
Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, and it provided First Advantage
with a report that attributed several criminal convictions to

Brown. (Id. ¶¶ 74-75.) Ashcott claimed that it matched the
criminal felony convictions to Brown based on first, middle, and
last names, in addition to his full Social Security Number. (Id.
¶ 77.) First Advantage included the criminal record in the report
provided to FXG. (See id. ¶ 78.)
On January 9, 2023, FXG informed Brown that his job
application had been denied because of the three convictions on
his background check report. (Id.) When Brown obtained a copy of
the report, he identified the mistake and contacted FXG on January
10, 2023. (Id. ¶¶ 79-80.) He informed FXG that he had never lived
in Pennsylvania, had never used the suffix Jr., had a different
Social Security Number, and was not a convicted felon. (Id. ¶ 80.)

FXG told Brown to contact First Advantage to correct the report.
(Id. ¶ 81.) Moreover, FXG told Brown that he could reapply for
the job once the report had been corrected. (Id.) Brown felt
panicked and frustrated because of the false report, and he never
reapplied for the job. (Id. ¶¶ 82-83, 94.)
In July 2025, the court granted Brown’s motion for default
judgment against Ashcott as to liability, but the court denied the
motion without prejudice as to damages. (Doc. 103 at 8.) The
court noted that Brown sought compensatory damages for one year of
lost income in addition to emotional distress said to be caused by
the inaccurate report. (Id. at 7.) Because “[i]t is Brown’s
burden to prove actual damages” and he “appear[ed] to have been

otherwise employed” during the period he claimed lost income, the
court indicated that it would hold a hearing on damages unless
Brown filed “support for his damages request that accounts for
income he earned in the year following the denial of his job
application by FXG.”1 (Id.) Brown has filed the requested
documentation. (See Doc. 108.)

1 The court’s prior order denied Brown’s motion for default judgment as
to damages in part because it appeared that Brown earned income from an
unspecified source between April and October 2023. (Doc. 103 at 7.)
II. ANALYSIS
A. Standard of Review
On a motion for a default judgment, “[i]f the court determines

that liability is established, the court must then determine
whether these unchallenged factual allegations constitute a
legitimate cause of action. The court does not accept factual
allegations regarding damages as true, but rather must make an
independent determination regarding such allegations.” Agora
Fin., LLC v. Samler, 725 F. Supp. 2d 491, 494 (D. Md. 2010)
(citation omitted). Moreover, the court may hold a hearing to
“(A) conduct an accounting; (B) determine the amount of damages;
(C) establish the truth of any allegation by evidence; or (D)
investigate any other matter.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 55(b)(2).
Alternatively, “the Court may award relief without a hearing if it
is supported by the pleadings.” J & J Sports Prods., Inc. v. After

Six Prods., Inc., No. 13-CV-591, 2014 WL 644400, at *2 (E.D. Va.
Feb. 19, 2014) (citing Anderson v. Found. for Advancement, Educ.
& Emp. of Am. Indians, 155 F.3d 500, 507 (4th Cir. 1998)).
“The FCRA provides a private cause of action for those damaged
by violations of the statute. A successful plaintiff can
recover . . . actual damages for negligent violations. Actual

Brown has supplemented the record, and it is evident that his testimony
was in fact the opposite. (Doc. 108 at 5.) He did not earn income from
employment during that period. (Doc. 108-1 ¶ 9.)
damages may include not only economic damages, but also damages
for humiliation and mental distress.” Sloane v. Equifax Info.
Servs., LLC, 510 F.3d 495, 500 (4th Cir. 2007) (citations omitted).

B. Brown’s Lost Employment Opportunity Damages
Brown first contends that, at minimum, he is entitled to the
difference between what he actually earned in 2023 and what he
would have earned in 2023 had he been hired by FedEx. (Doc. 108
at 6.) According to Brown, this difference – or “shortfall” – is
at least $76,179.15. (Id.) However, Brown overstates his harm.
A plaintiff seeking actual damages under the FCRA has a duty
to mitigate his damages. See, e.g., Cooper v. Milliman, Inc., No.
23-cv-00028, 2025 WL 2249600, at *7 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 7, 2025); Smith
v. Experian Info. Sols., Inc., No. 24-CV-408, 2025 WL 973492, at
*2 (N.D. Ind. Apr. 1, 2025); Marcinski v. RBS Citizens Bank, N.A.,
36 F. Supp. 3d 286, 291 (S.D.N.Y. 2014). Here, FXG invited Brown

to reapply for the job once First Advantage corrected his
background check report. (Doc. 42 ¶ 48.) Brown disputed the
report with First Advantage on January 10, 2023, and First
Advantage issued a corrected report on February 8, 2023 (Docs. 42
¶ 80; 68 at 13; 68-2 at 22-23). Yet, Brown never reapplied for
the job. (Doc. 42 ¶ 94.) Brown cannot now claim lost income for
an entire year when he made no effort to mitigate his damages,
especially after FXG expressly invited him to reapply. Thus, at
most, the shortfall in Brown’s income stems only from the six-week
period between his denial by FXG and the issuance of the corrected
background check report, at which point he could have simply
reapplied for the job.

The applicable measure of Brown’s economic damages is the
difference between what Brown earned on average for six weeks of
work with his original employer, R&L Carriers, and what he would
have earned if he had worked those same six weeks with FedEx.
While at R&L Carriers, Brown earned $5,216.55 over the course of
about four months. (Docs. 108 at 3-4; 108-2 at 2.) This equates
to about $326.03 per week, or $1,956.21 for six weeks. At FedEx,
Brown anticipated that he would have earned between $83,200 and
$93,600 annually. (Doc. 108 at 3.) Giving Brown the benefit of
assuming that he would have earned at the high end of the salary
range, this equates to $1,800 per week, or $10,800 for six weeks.
As a result, a reasonable calculation of Brown’s income shortfall

for the relevant six-week period is $8,843.79.
C. Brown’s Emotional Distress Damages
Brown next argues that he suffered emotional distress because
of Ashcott’s erroneous reporting and that it independently
justifies a damages award of $100,000. (Id. at 7.) Specifically,
Brown contends that he experienced “prolonged and severe emotional
distress, including depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, heavy
drinking, loss of motivation to seek work, and a deterioration of
his physical health as evidenced by a spike in his A1C levels.”
(Id. at 8.) According to Brown, “[t]hese injuries persisted for
the better part of a year and required professional mental health
treatment and medication.” (Id.)

The Fourth Circuit has “warned that not only is emotional
distress fraught with vagueness and speculation, it is easily
susceptible to fictitious and trivial claims.” Robinson v. Equifax
Info. Servs., LLC, 560 F.3d 235, 241 (4th Cir. 2009) (quoting
Sloane, 510 F.3d at 503). Thus, a plaintiff is required to
“sufficiently articulate true demonstrable emotional distress.”
Sloane, 510 F.3d at 503. “A plaintiff’s testimony ‘must indicate
with specificity how the plaintiff’s alleged distress manifested
itself’ and ‘must also show a causal connection between the [FCRA]
violation and her emotional distress.’” Primrose v. Castle Branch,
Inc., No. 14-CV-235, 2017 WL 57800, at *8 (E.D.N.C. Jan. 3, 2017)
(alteration in original) (quoting Bryant v. Aiken Reg’l Med. Ctrs.,

Inc., 333 F.3d 536, 547 (4th Cir. 2003)). “‘Demonstrable’
emotional distress refers to emotional distress which leads to
externally observable occurrences like physical symptoms or a
diagnosis from a medical professional.” Id. (first citing Bryant,
333 F.3d at 547; and then citing Dennis v. Columbia Colleton Med.
Ctr., Inc., 290 F.3d 639, 653 (4th Cir. 2002)).
Here, Brown alleges that his A1C levels, which measure his
blood glucose, have risen from 6.7 percent to 7.5 percent because
of his emotional distress. (Docs. 108 at 7; 108-3 at 8.) He
asserts that he has experienced some loss of sleep, and he has
increased his drinking from two glasses of wine per day to two
bottles of wine per day, five days per week. (Docs. 108 at 7;

108-3 at 9-10.) Moreover, he contends that his primary doctor
began prescribing an antidepressant to him in October 2023. (Docs.
108 at 7; 108-3 at 5-6.) Finally, Brown asserts that he began
seeing a psychologist at some point in 2023. (Docs. 108 at 7;
108-3 at 10.)
The court is unpersuaded that these externally observable
occurrences warrant $100,000 in actual damages for emotional
distress. Brown may have experienced some initial reaction and
frustration at the erroneous information on his background check
report. However, he contacted First Advantage only one day later,
and First Advantage produced a corrected report within six weeks.
Brown knew all along that the initial report was false. Further,

although he reviewed the erroneous report in January 2023, he did
not seek treatment for depression from a healthcare professional
until October 2023. Accordingly, he did not receive any medication
until about ten months after the alleged cause of his emotional
distress. Given this significant lapse of time, the relatively
quick resolution of the initial discrepancy, and the fact that
Brown could have reapplied for the position shortly after the error
occurred (and long before he began to see anyone for his symptoms),2
it is difficult for the court to causally connect his claimed
depression or increased alcohol consumption to the false

information on his background check report. Moreover, Brown did
not provide any testimony or documentation from his treating
physician, psychologist, or counselor.
Nevertheless, Brown has plausibly claimed some demonstrable
emotional distress that occurred after he became aware of the
initial background check report. The court will therefore award
Brown $2,500 in actual damages for the emotional distress incurred
because of Ashcott’s erroneous reporting.
In sum, the court awards Brown $8,843.79 for his lost
employment opportunity and $2,500 for his emotional distress,
resulting in a total award of $11,343.79 in actual damages. As to
attorney’s fees, “in the case of any successful action to enforce

liability” for negligent noncompliance, the FCRA authorizes a
party to recover “the costs of the action together with reasonable
attorney’s fees as determined by the court.”3 15 U.S.C.

2 Brown has maintained all along that his prospective employer agreed
with him that his lapsed medical certificate was curable and not an
impediment to his being hired. (Doc. 77 at 19-20.)

3 The court already found that Brown failed to allege any facts that
would demonstrate a willful violation of the FCRA by Ashcott. (See Doc.
103 at 8.) However, a party may recover costs and attorney’s fees in
successful actions for either willful or negligent noncompliance with
the FCRA. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681n(a)(3), 1681o(a)(2).
§ 1681o(a)(2). Any request for attorney’s fees shall be made
through a separate motion that complies with Local Rule 54.2.
III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated,
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Plaintiff Brown’s motion for
default judgment (Doc. 52) as to damages is GRANTED IN PART and
Brown shall recover of Defendant Ashcott actual damages in the
amount of $11,343.79; the motion is otherwise DENIED.

/s/ Thomas D. Schroeder
United States District Judge

October 14, 2025

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11170416. Public record. Not legal advice.