In Brooks v. Niagara Credit Solutions, Inc., 2015 WL 6828142, at *1 (D.Kan. 2015), Judge Lungstrom declined to follow the Douglass glassine window case.
As will be explained, the court declines to follow the Douglass opinion (which, of course, it is not bound by) and concludes that defendant’s use of plaintiff’s account number through the envelope’s glassine window does not violate the FDCPA. Defendant’s motion to dismiss is granted. . . .The court declines to follow the Douglass opinion. In light of the Tenth Circuit’s decision in Marx, the court finds it unlikely that the Tenth Circuit would conclude that the presence of an account number, without more, would implicate the privacy concerns highlighted by the Third Circuit or that the number, standing alone, would be sufficient to identify plaintiff as a debtor. Thus, while plaintiff urges that the court need not decide whether a benign language exception exists because her account number, as a matter of law, is not benign, the court cannot conclude that the Tenth Circuit would find the account number “not benign.” In fact, Marx suggests that the Circuit would find a “benign language” exception to § 1692f(8) and that an internal account number falls within that exception. Plaintiff (or defendant, for that matter) does not address the Tenth Circuit’s decision in any respect. The court is also persuaded by the clear majority of cases that have found a “benign language” exception to § 1692f(8) and have concluded that the presence of an internal account number on a debt collection envelope falls within that exception. Both the legislative history and the FTC commentary clearly state that § 1692f(8) is intended to prohibit markings on the outside of debt collection envelopes that suggest that the contents of the envelope pertain to debt collection. While a “very determined snoop, with the help of extrinsic research” might conceivably be able to determine from the account number that the contents pertain to debt collection, see Schmid, 2015 WL 5181922, at *5, the statute prohibits only those markings that might “intimate” to those who glimpse at the envelope that it pertains to debt collection. See id. (citing Goswami, 377 F.3d at 494). An internal account number, without more, simply cannot suggest to an observer that the envelope contains debt collection correspondence. Moreover, an internal account number has far less potential to disclose plaintiff as a debtor than a Google search of the debt collector’s return address. See Gardner, 2015 WL 6442246, at *5. If § 1692f(8) were concerned “with the display of information that could, if diligently investigated, disclose a recipient’s debtor status, it would not permit return addresses—or, arguably, use of the mails—at all.” Id. But the Act permits this information, as well as the collection agency’s name, so long as the name, on its face, does not indicate that the sender is in the debt collection business. See id. (citing 15 U.S.C. § 1692f(8)). For the foregoing reasons, the court concludes that defendant’s display of plaintiff’s account number through the address window of the debt collection envelope is benign and does not violate the FDCPA. The motion to dismiss is granted.