In Stoops v. Wells Fargo Bank, here, Judge Gibson held that a TCPA Plaintiff cannot set up an enterprise designed to obtain TCPA damages and still have constitutional standing to sue under the TCPA.
Plaintiff’s testimony once again establishes that she has not suffered an injury-in-fact. It is well settled that a plaintiff “cannot manufacture standing by choosing to make expenditures based on hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending.” Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 133 S. Ct. 1138, 1143, 1151 (2013) (finding that “Respondents’ contention that they have standing because they incurred certain costs as a reasonable reaction to a risk of harm is unavailing–because the harm respondents seek to avoid is not certainly impending” and holding that “respondents cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending”); see also Reilly v. Ceridian Corp., 664 F.3d 38, 46 (3d Cir. 2011) (“[The plaintiffs’] alleged time and money expenditures to monitor their financial information do not establish standing, because costs incurred to watch for a speculative chain of future events based on hypothetical future criminal acts are no more ‘actual’ injuries than the alleged ‘increased risk of injury’ which forms the basis for [the plaintiffs’] claims.”); Crisafulli v. Ameritas Life Ins. Co., No. 13-CV-5937, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56499, at *10 (D.N.J. Apr. 29, 2015) (holding that the plaintiff “may not rely on expenses for identity theft protection as a basis for standing”); In re Horizon Healthcare Servs. Data Breach Litig., No. 3:13-CV-7418, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41839, at *18 n.5 (D.N.J. Mar. 31, 2015) (holding that the plaintiffs did not have standing because they “may not rely on the expense of credit monitoring and other preventative measures for standing”). Because Plaintiff has admitted that her only purpose in purchasing her cell phones and minutes is to receive more calls, thus enabling her to file TCPA lawsuits, she has not suffered an economic injury. See, e.g., Leyse v. Bank of Am. Nat’l Ass’n, 804 F.3d 316, 323 (3d Cir. 2015) (explaining that “only certain plaintiffs will have suffered the particularized injury required to maintain an action in federal court for a [TCPA] violation” and that “[s]omeone with a generalized interest in punishing telemarketers, for example, would not qualify on that basis alone”); Schumacher, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 132752, at *13 (explaining that “an interest in statutory damages cannot be the sole injury to satisfy Article III requirements”); Cellco P’ship v. Wilcrest Health Care Mgmt., 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64407, at *23-25 (D.N.J. May 8, 2012) (in concluding that the plaintiffs lacked standing, noting the significance that “Plaintiffs have abandoned any claim to actual damages, but solely seek statutory damages of $500 per call” and stating that “[t]he TCPA . . . anticipates damages on an individual basis because the contemplated plaintiff is an individual natural person or business with a limited number of phone lines on which it might receive telemarketing calls”) (emphasis added). The Court therefore must reject Plaintiff’s argument that she suffered an injury-in-fact because her economic interests were violated.