Carfax Lawsuits: DPPA Class Action, Accuracy, and Antitrust

Carfax has been sued repeatedly over the past two decades, and the lawsuits fall into three broad groups: a federal class action alleging the company illegally sells drivers’ personal information from police crash reports, a long line of cases claiming its vehicle history reports are inaccurate or misleading, and a large antitrust suit brought by auto dealers that Carfax ultimately won. The most consequential active case is Lucas v. Carfax, filed in Maryland federal court in 2025 under the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act. A judge refused to throw it out in March 2026, and discovery is now underway.

The Active DPPA Class Action

Benjamin Lucas, a Maryland resident, filed a proposed class action against Carfax in February 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. After a December 2023 car accident, Lucas alleges, Carfax bought his police crash report from a law enforcement agency and resold the personal information it contained for commercial purposes, all without his knowledge or consent.¹

The Driver’s Privacy Protection Act restricts who can obtain and use personal information drawn from motor vehicle records, and defines “personal information” to include names, addresses, and driver identification numbers. Resellers of that data have a duty to take reasonable steps to confirm that buyers have a lawful reason to receive it. Lucas’s complaint argues that Carfax operates as a reseller, does not verify that third-party buyers of its crash reports are authorized to receive the data, and instead markets access to a database of more than 1.5 million police reports as a commercial product.²³

Carfax moved to dismiss on two grounds. It argued that a police crash report is not a “motor vehicle record” under the DPPA because it comes from a police department rather than a DMV, and it argued that Lucas’s claim that the data was sold for an impermissible purpose was too conclusory to survive.³

Judge Julie R. Rubin denied the motion in March 2026. She called Carfax’s statutory argument “well-taken” and said it raised “serious questions (if not doubts)” about whether Lucas could ultimately prevail. But she found that the factual record about where the data came from and how it was handled had not yet been developed, and that Lucas had “plausibly alleged” that Carfax obtained and sold his protected information for an impermissible purpose.⁴ Carfax can raise the same arguments again at summary judgment.

The proposed class would cover all U.S. residents whose personal information from state DMV motor vehicle records was obtained, used, or resold by Carfax within four years before the complaint was filed, for purposes not permitted by the DPPA. The complaint seeks statutory damages of at least $2,500 per class member, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, and a permanent injunction.²

As of mid-2026, the class has not been certified and no settlement has been reached. There is no claim form and no way for potential class members to sign up at this stage.

The Unsettled Question That Will Decide the Case

The threshold issue is whether a police crash report qualifies as a “motor vehicle record” under the DPPA at all. The statute defines that term as a record “pertaining to” a title, registration, permit, or identification card issued by a DMV. Lucas says the personal data in crash reports originates in DMV records before it reaches police. Carfax says the reports are police documents that fall outside the statute.

Federal courts have split on related questions. A Wisconsin appellate court held in 2016 that the DPPA does not protect personal information in police accident reports when state law explicitly authorizes public access to those reports.⁵ The Fourth Circuit has drawn a distinction between information obtained directly “from” a motor vehicle record and information “derived from” one, holding that only the former triggers DPPA protection.⁶ How Judge Rubin resolves that question will likely determine whether Lucas succeeds.

Lawsuits Over Inaccurate Vehicle History Reports

The most common consumer complaint against Carfax is that its reports are wrong or missing information, and several lawsuits have tested how far the company’s responsibility for that goes.

West v. Carfax

West v. Carfax, filed in Ohio’s Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas, accused Carfax of misleading consumers by suggesting its reports covered accident data from all 50 states when its database actually lacked police accident records from 23 states. Related cases from other states, including Davis v. Carfax in Oklahoma, were consolidated with West for settlement.⁷

The proposed settlement offered class members coupons rather than cash: two free reports, a voucher for 50 percent off unlimited reports for 30 days, or up to $20 toward a mechanical inspection. Public Citizen objected, arguing the coupon relief was essentially worthless and that most class members were never notified. The trial court approved it in May 2008. The Ohio 11th District Court of Appeals reversed in December 2009, finding that the trial judge had not required notice to the majority of the class and had never assessed whether the coupons had any real value. The Ohio Supreme Court declined to review.⁸

Sussman v. Carfax

Elliot Sussman, a New York vehicle owner, sued Carfax in Nassau County Supreme Court in 2022 after a buyer lowered its offer on his 2019 Honda Odyssey based on a Carfax report that allegedly listed “minor damage” that had never occurred. Sussman said Carfax refused to investigate or correct the entry and would not disclose its data sources.⁹

The court dismissed Sussman’s deceptive trade practices and false advertising claims but let his negligence claim proceed, ruling that a company preparing a report to value a specific vehicle has a duty to take reasonable care that the information is correct. The court also rejected Carfax’s reliance on the disclaimer printed on its reports, because Sussman had no contract with Carfax and was not bound by it. The case was discontinued in late December 2022 by stipulation, which suggests a private resolution.¹⁰

Other Accuracy Cases and Complaints

A 2018 proposed class action filed in the Middle District of Florida by Ilene Schwartz alleged that Carfax publishes inaccurate information about title history, structural damage, and service records, and provides no mechanism for consumers to dispute incorrect entries.¹¹ Consumer complaints filed with the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office have followed a similar pattern: buyers who relied on clean reports only to discover later that a vehicle had significant prior damage. Carfax has responded that its reports reflect only the data submitted by its sources, and that damage records often don’t appear until a source reports them after the fact.¹²

The accuracy complaints all run into the same structural point: Carfax is an aggregator. Reporting from many sources is voluntary, service records come in from only about 20 to 30 percent of repair shops, and some data arrives with a lag of 30 to 90 days. A “clean” report means no source has reported a problem yet.

The Dealer Antitrust Case

In April 2013, Maxon Hyundai Mazda and about 120 other auto dealerships sued Carfax in federal court in Manhattan, alleging that the company had monopolized the vehicle history report market through exclusive dealing arrangements. By the time the case was fully briefed, 469 dealerships had joined.¹³¹⁴

The dealers said Carfax controlled roughly 90 percent of the vehicle history report market through exclusivity deals with 37 of 40 Certified Pre-Owned programs and with major listing sites including Autotrader.com and Cars.com. They said those deals left them “effectively compelled” to pay Carfax monthly fees ranging from $899 to $1,549 per location even though cheaper alternatives existed, and they sought at least $50 million in damages plus an injunction.¹³

District Judge Alison Nathan granted summary judgment to Carfax in late 2016, finding that the alleged exclusive deals did not foreclose enough of the market to sustain an antitrust claim; the CPO agreements were short-term or easily terminable, and competitor AutoCheck could still reach consumers through other channels.¹⁴ The Second Circuit affirmed unanimously in June 2018, calling the dealers’ arguments “without merit.”¹⁵

Why Suing Carfax Is Difficult

Anyone who buys a Carfax report agrees to terms of use that make litigation considerably harder. The terms include a mandatory binding arbitration clause requiring disputes to be resolved individually before a single arbitrator under the Federal Arbitration Act and AAA rules. Class actions, consolidated actions, and representative proceedings are expressly prohibited.¹⁶

You can opt out of arbitration, but you must send written notice to Carfax within 30 calendar days of purchasing or first using the service. Miss that window and you are limited to small claims court (if the claim qualifies) or arbitration. Any court case must be filed in Fairfax County, Virginia, or the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. For claims under $25,000, Carfax covers all arbitration fees; above that, costs are split.¹⁶

Courts have generally enforced these kinds of liability limitations and warranty disclaimers, so individual consumers pursuing inaccurate-report claims face an uphill fight even with sympathetic facts.¹⁷ The Lucas DPPA case sidesteps this entirely because it is brought by someone whose data appeared in a Carfax-purchased crash report, not someone who bought a Carfax report and agreed to the terms.

1
ClassAction.org. Carfax Unlawfully Sells Police Accident Reports Without Drivers’ Consent, Class Action Lawsuit Alleges
2
ClassAction.org. Lucas v. Carfax, Inc., Class Action Complaint
3
Data Privacy and Security Insider. Carfax Motion to Dismiss Denied in DPPA Crash Report Data Sales Case
4
Bloomberg Law. Carfax Stuck With Consumer Lawsuit Over Sale of Crash Reports
5
Boardman Clark. Appellate Court Rules on Police Departments Disclosure Obligations Under the Drivers Privacy Protection Act
6
Ellis & Winters. Fourth Circuit Holds Drivers Fall Short on Standing in Accident Report Privacy Claims
7
Public Citizen. West v. Carfax, Inc. and Polk Carfax, Inc.
8
Public Citizen. Ohio Appeals Court Rejects Class Action Settlement With Carfax, Agrees With Public Citizens Objections
9
FindLaw. Sussman v. Carfax Inc.
10
Trellis Law. Sussman, Elliot v. Carfax, Inc.
11
Bloomberg Law. Carfax Hit With Proposed Class Suit Over Vehicle History Reports
12
WBTV. Carfax Customers Say Companys Incomplete Vehicle Reports Cost Them Thousands of Dollars
13
Courthouse News Service. Dealers Mutiny Against Carfax as Monopolist
14
Compass Lexecon. Carfax Litigation
15
PR Newswire. Federal Appeals Court Upholds Carfax Win in Lawsuit
16
Carfax. Terms of Use
17
FindLaw. Can I Sue Over a Used Car History Document or Service