Art. III Standing

In Johnson v. Heuer Law Offices, No. 19-CV-1171-JPS-JPS, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56709 (E.D. Wis. Mar. 25, 2021), Judge Stadtmueller granted summary judgment to a debt collection law firm who was alleged not to have “meaningful involvement” in the sending of dunning letters.  The Judge Stadmueller held that although the Plaintiff clearly had emotional distress tied to the law firm’s… Read More

In Nettles v. Midland Funding LLC, No. 19-3327, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 40012 (7th Cir. Dec. 21, 2020), the Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit declined to address arbitration of an FDCPA case because of lack of Art. III jurisdiction to start. Most of the briefing concerns the arbitration issue, but the parties also identify a possible problem with… Read More

In Cooper v. Atl. Credit & Fin., No. 19-12177, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 23719 (11th Cir. July 28, 2020), the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit found no Article III standing for an overshadowing claim under the FDCPA. Here, Cooper's alleged injuries are just  as inchoate, if not more so. She does not allege that, without the purportedly confusing… Read More

In Frank v. Autovest, No. 19-7119, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 18082, at *6 (D.C. Cir. June 9, 2020), the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismissed for lack of Art. III standing an FDCPA claim purported based on the debt collector's filing of false affidavits in a collection action. Frank hasn't carried that burden. She fails to identify a… Read More

In Frank v. Gaos, the SCOTUS today placed further standing impediments to privacy and other purely statutory/no damages class actions, finding, following objections to the class action settlement, that the case should be remanded to determine standing under Spokeo.  The background facts were as follows: Three named plaintiffs brought class action claims against Google for alleged violations of the Stored Communications Act.… Read More

In Hagy v. Demers & Adams, 2018 WL 914953, at *3–5 (C.A.6 (Ohio), 2018), the Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit held that "[w]e know of no circuit court decision since Spokeo that endorses an anything-hurts-so-long-as-Congress-says-it-hurts theory of Article III injury.".  Thus, the 6th Circuit held that a bare FDCPA violation without correlative injury did not vest Article III… Read More

In Provo v. Rady Childrens Hospital-San Diego, 2016 WL 4625556, at *2 (S.D.Cal., 2016), Judge Miller dismissed a Rosenthal Act claim with leave to amend because the Plaintiffs had not pleaded any concrete injury under Spokeo.  Here, the only harm Plaintiffs plead is in reference to phone calls made by CMRE's codefendant, Rady, which Plaintiffs allege caused “undue stress, anxiety, and frustration....”… Read More

In Quinn v. Specialized Loan Servicing, LLC, 2016 WL 4264967, at *4–5 (N.D.Ill., 2016), Judge Bucklo rejected a Spokeo challenge to an FDCPA class action grounded in the Defendant's alleged contact with represented debtors. I am unpersuaded. As an initial matter, despite SLS's suggestion to the contrary, Spokeo does not stand for the proposition that a procedural violation of a… Read More

In Daubert v. NRA Group, LLC, 2016 WL 4245560, at *4 (M.D.Pa., 2016), Judge Caputo found that a Douglass-glassine window violation confers Article III standing under Spokeo.  Similarly, here, Plaintiff's injury is also the unlawful disclosure of legally protected information. This injury is “clearly particularized,” as Plaintiff alleges that it was his personal identifying information that was disclosed. This injury… Read More