In Nabozny v. Optio Sols. LLC, No. 22-1202, 2023 WL 6967048, at *3–6 (7th Cir. Oct. 23, 2023), the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit followed the 11th Circuit’s decision in Hunstein.
Nabozny alleges in her complaint that Optio’s violation of § 1692c(b) harmed her by “invading her privacy.” She elaborates a bit in her brief, arguing that because Optio disclosed information about her debt to its third-party mail vendor, she suffered a loss of her ability to control her personal financial information. And that harm, she contends, is analogous to the harm caused by a tortious invasion of privacy and thus qualifies as a concrete injury for standing purposes. We disagree. And we are in good company in rejecting this argument. In Hunstein—a materially identical § 1692c(b) case involving a debt collector’s use of a third-party mail vendor to process a form collection letter—the en banc Eleventh Circuit considered the privacy-tort analogy in depth and rejected it, concluding that the plaintiff lacked standing to sue because he suffered no cognizable injury from the alleged statutory violation. 48 F.4th at 1241–50. The Tenth Circuit has since endorsed Hunstein. Shields, 55 F.4th at 828–29. No other circuit has held to the contrary. It would take a strong reason for us to create a circuit split, and we decline to do so here.