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5th Circuit: A single unsolicited text constitutes TCPA standing
On May 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that receiving a single unsolicited text message is enough to establish standing under the TCPA. The plaintiff alleged he received an unsolicited text message on his cell phone from the defendant after he had previously revoked consent and reached a settlement with the defendant to resolve a dispute over two other unsolicited text messages. The plaintiff filed a putative class action alleging that the defendant negligently, willfully, and/or knowingly sent text messages using an automatic telephone dialing system without first receiving consent, and that the unsolicited message was “a nuisance and invasion of privacy.” The district court dismissed the suit for lack of standing, ruling that a “single unwelcome text message will not always involve an intrusion into the privacy of the home in the same way that a voice call to a residential line necessarily does.”
On appeal, the 5th Circuit disagreed, concluding that the nuisance arising from the single text message was a sufficiently concrete injury and enough to establish standing. “In enacting the TCPA, Congress found that ‘unrestricted telemarketing can be an intrusive invasion of privacy’ and a ‘nuisance,’” the appellate court wrote, commenting that the TCPA “cannot be read to regulate unsolicited telemarketing only when it affects the home.” In addition, the appellate court found that the plaintiff separately alleged personal injuries that separated him from the public at large by arguing that the “aggravating and annoying” robodialed text message “interfered with [his] rights and interests in his cellular telephone.” In reversing the district court’s ruling, the 5th Circuit disregarded precedent set by the 11th Circuit in Salcedo v. Hanna (covered by InfoBytes here). Calling the other appellate court’s decision “mistaken,” the 5th Circuit contended the other appellate court took too narrow a view of the theory of harm by concluding that there must be some actual damage before an action can be maintained. Moreover, the 5th Circuit stated the 11th Circuit misunderstood the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, writing “Salcedo’s focus on the substantiality of an alleged harm threatens to make this already difficult area of law even more unmanageable. We therefore reject it.”
3rd Circuit: Alleging only a statutory violation of the TCPA does not establish standing to sue
On May 19, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a proposed TCPA class action suit for lack of standing, finding that the named plaintiff did not claim anything other than a “bare procedural harm that resulted in no harm.” According to the opinion, the plaintiff—who worked as an investigator for an attorney who prepared TCPA lawsuits—received a prerecorded telemarketing call in 2005 from a marketing company on behalf of the defendant national bank. The plaintiff, using a false name and employer, then placed and recorded more than 20 investigative calls to the marketing company to determine the number and frequency of calls it made. He then provided the recordings to the bank and declined the marketing company’s offer to place him on their Do-Not-Call list. In 2011, the plaintiff sued the bank alleging a single count violation of the TCPA but did not allege that he suffered any annoyance or nuisance from the marketing company’s call. The bank moved for summary judgment, arguing that: (i) the plaintiff lacked Article III standing to sue; (ii) “the call was exempt from the TCPA under FCC rules because the parties had an established business relationship” because the plaintiff was a customer of the bank; and (iii) the recorded message’s content did not violate the TCPA. The district court agreed with the bank and granted summary judgment on all three grounds.
On appeal, the Third Circuit disagreed with the plaintiff’s assertion that all he had to do was allege a statutory violation in order to have standing to sue, declining “to adopt such an absolute rule of standing with respect to the TCPA.” Because “the TCPA is intended to prevent harm stemming from nuisance, invasions of privacy, and other such injuries,” the plaintiff must allege at least one of those injuries to show concrete harm necessary to demonstrate an injury-in-fact and establish standing to sue, the appellate court wrote.
9th Circuit denies en banc rehearing in CFPB case against Seila Law
On May 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied en banc rehearing of CFPB v. Seila Law, LLC. As previously covered by InfoBytes, following remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit had reaffirmed a district court order granting the CFPB’s petition to enforce a civil investigative demand (CID) sent to Seila Law. The panel wrote that “Director Kraninger’s ratification [of the CID] remedied any constitutional injury that Seila Law may have suffered due to the manner in which the CFPB was originally structured. Seila Law’s only cognizable injury arose from the fact that the agency issued the CID and pursued its enforcement while headed by a Director who was improperly insulated from the President’s removal authority. Any concerns that Seila Law might have had about being subjected to investigation without adequate presidential oversight and control had now been resolved. A Director well aware that she may be removed by the President at will had ratified her predecessors’ earlier decisions to issue and enforce the CID.”
Judge Bumatay, joined by three other circuit judges, dissented from denial of en banc rehearing, arguing that “[o]ur court’s decision to deny rehearing en banc effectively means that Seila Law is entitled to no relief from the harms inflicted by an unaccountable and unchecked federal agency. Thus, while David slayed the giant, Goliath still wins.” Judge Bumatay further stressed that the doctrine of ratification does not permit the Bureau to “retroactively gift itself power that it lacked,” concluding that the panel’s condoning of the Bureau’s “power grab was erroneous.”
6th Circuit affirms dismissal of FACTA credit card receipt suit
On May 11, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a putative class action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, holding that while a merchant technically violated the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) by including 10 credit card digits on a customer’s receipt, the customer failed to allege any concrete harm sufficient to establish standing. According to the opinion, the named plaintiff filed a class action against the merchant alleging the first six and last four digits of her credit card number were printed on her receipt—a violation of FACTA’s truncation requirement, which only permits the last five digits to be printed on a receipt. The plaintiff argued that this presented “a significant risk of the exact harm that Congress intended to prevent—the display of card information that could be exploited by an identity thief,” and further claimed she did not need to allege any harm beyond the violation of the statute to establish standing. The district court disagreed, ruling that the plaintiff “lacked standing because she alleged merely a threat of future harm that was not certainly impending” and that the merchant’s technical violation demonstrated no material risk of identity theft.
In agreeing with the district court, the 6th Circuit concluded that a “violation of the statute does not automatically create a concrete injury of increased risk of real harm even if Congress designed it so.” Moreover, the appellate court reasoned that the “factual allegations in this complaint do not establish an increased risk of identity theft either because they do not show how, even if [p]laintiff’s receipt fell into the wrong hands, criminals would have a gateway to consumers’ personal and financial data.” The appellate court further concluded, “statutory-injury-for-injury’s sake does not satisfy Article III’s injury in fact requirement” and the court must exercise its constitutional duty to ensure a plaintiff has standing.
2nd Circuit affirms borrower standing in mortgage recordation delay suit
On May 10, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit determined that class members have constitutional standing to sue a national bank for allegedly violating New York’s mortgage-satisfaction-recording statutes, which require lenders to record borrowers’ repayments within 30 days. The plaintiffs filed a class action suit alleging the bank’s recordation delay harmed their financial reputations, impaired their credit, and limited their borrowing capacity. The district court agreed, ruling that the plaintiffs had Article III standing to sue because the bank’s alleged violation of the mortgage-satisfaction-recording statutes created a “material risk of harm” to them.
On appeal, the majority opinion first determined, among other things, that “state legislatures may create legally protected interests whose violation supports Article III standing, subject to certain federal limitations.” The alleged state law violations in this matter, the majority wrote, constitute a concrete and particularized harm to the plaintiffs in the form of both reputational injury and limitations in borrowing capacity during the recordation delay period. Moreover, the majority concluded that the bank’s alleged failure to report the plaintiffs’ mortgage discharge “posed a real risk of material harm” because the public record reflected an outstanding debt of over $50,000, which could “reasonably be inferred to have substantially restricted” the plaintiffs’ borrowing capacity. The dissenting judge argued, however, that the plaintiffs “never suffered a cloud on title prohibiting them from selling their property, or adverse effects on their credit, or an inability to finance another property, or even a risk of these harms,” and that the “trivial nature of a recordation delay is reflected in the 30-day delay that is tolerated without penalty, and by the small penalty exacted even after 90 days.”
The 2nd Circuit joined the Third, Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth circuits in holding that state legislatures have the power to “create ‘legally protected interests’” that, when violated, satisfy Article III injury-in-fact requirement, noting that it is “aware of no Circuit holding to the contrary.”
9th Circuit: Federal Foreclosure Bar preempts Nevada HOA law, maintaining Fannie Deed of Trust
On May 5, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of a mortgage servicer in an action asserting claims arising from a homeowners’ association’s (HOA) nonjudicial foreclosure on real property in Nevada. According to the opinion, Fannie Mae originally purchased the loan on the property (secured by a Deed of Trust), which was eventually assigned to the mortgage servicer. Following the homeowners’ failure to pay their HOA dues, a foreclosure sale was held, and the property was conveyed to a limited liability company. The mortgage servicer filed a quiet title suit against the company, and the district court granted summary judgment in its favor on the basis that the Federal Foreclosure Bar (which prohibits the foreclosure of FHFA property without FHFA’s consent) “prevented the extinguishment of Fannie Mae’s Deed.”
In agreeing with the district court, the 9th Circuit first rejected two threshold challenges raised by the company, holding that the mortgage servicer “properly and timely” raised its claims under the Federal Foreclosure Bar. Specifically, the appellate court determined that the mortgage servicer “presented ample evidence of its servicing relationship with Fannie Mae,” and that this relationship, along with authority delegated to Fannie Mae loan servicers to protect its mortgage loans, “was more than sufficient to establish” that the mortgage servicer was Fannie Mae’s loan servicer and, therefore “had the authority to assert the Federal Foreclosure Bar” in quiet title action. The 9th Circuit also concluded that the mortgage servicer filed the action within the applicable six-year statute of limitations. In holding that the Federal Foreclosure Bar preempted Nevada’s HOA law and prevented the extinguishment of Fannie Mae’s Deed of Trust, the appellate court noted, among other things, that the mortgage servicer demonstrated that Fannie Mae retained an enforceable interest in the loan at the time of the HOA foreclosure sale. The 9th Circuit rejected the company’s argument that the mortgage servicer “failed to produce a ‘signed writing’ evincing such interest as required by the Nevada statute of frauds.” According to the appellate court, given that the company “was not a party to the underlying loan agreement pursuant to which Fannie Mae acquired the loan,” the company could not raise the statute of frauds.
11th Circuit revives FCRA claims against credit-reporting agency
On April 28, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated a district court’s judgment, holding that it was unclear whether a credit reporting agency (CRA) took “reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information” as required under the FCRA after a consumer claimed his credit report contained inaccuracies. The consumer contacted the CRA after noticing his credit report showed he was delinquent on a mortgage that was discharged in bankruptcy. The CRA sent an automated consumer data verification to the mortgage servicer who confirmed the debt. The consumer claimed that the CRA did not take further steps to investigate the situation and failed to correct the credit report until after the consumer commenced the litigation against the CRA for willfully violating the FCRA. The district court disagreed with the consumer, concluding that under both § 1681e and § 1681i, the CRA’s actions were reasonable as a matter of law. Among other things, the consumer failed to provide the CRA “with specific information from which it could have discovered that he no longer owed money” on the mortgage, the district court found, determining also that the consumer’s “theory of liability was a ‘bridge too far’ because it would require [CRAs] to examine court orders and other documents to determine their legal effect.”
On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit disagreed that the measures taken by the CRA after it was notified of the inaccuracy in the consumer’s report were “‘reasonable’ as a matter of law.” The CRA did “nothing, although it easily could have done something with the information” provided by the consumer, the appellate court wrote. However, the court emphasized that its decision was a narrow one. “Just as we cannot hold that [the CRA’s] procedures were per se reasonable, we do not hold that they were per se unreasonable,” the appellate court wrote, noting that it also could not “hold that in every circumstance where a plaintiff informs a [CRA] of an inaccuracy, the agency must examine court records to independently discern the status of a debt.” Additionally, the appellate court determined that although a bankruptcy discharge does not expunge a debt, the consumer’s credit report was still factually inaccurate because he “was no longer liable for the balance nor was he ‘past due’ on any amount for more than 180 days.”
District Court says “state of confusion” not an injury under the FDCPA
On April 26, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted a defendant debt collector’s request for summary judgment and vacated a class certification order following recent decisions issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in which the appellate court held that “the state of confusion is not itself an injury.” The court’s order reversed an earlier ruling that granted class certification and partial summary judgment in favor of a class of Illinois consumers who alleged that the defendant sent misleading or confusing dunning letters that violated the FDCPA by incorrectly identifying the name of the creditor. However, after reconsidering several 7th Circuit holdings (see InfoBytes coverage of Pennell v. Global Trust Management, LLC here), the court concluded that in the absence of any evidence showing that the plaintiff suffered a concrete injury, the plaintiff lacked standing to bring his FDCPA claims. Specifically, the court held that the plaintiff failed to claim that his confusion led him to take any actions to his detriment. Being merely confused is not a concrete injury, the court ruled, emphasizing that the plaintiff “needed to do more than demonstrate a threat that he would fail to exercise his rights because he deemed the letter a scam—he must have actually failed to exercise those rights and suffered some tangible adverse consequence as a result.”
2nd Circuit: No standing if PII is uncompromised
On April 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a proposed class action settlement, concluding that although, “in the context of unauthorized data disclosures,” plaintiffs may establish Article III standing on the theory that a data breach increases the risk of identity theft, the appealing plaintiff failed to show that her sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) had been misused or compromised. The plaintiff filed a proposed class action against a former employer after a company employee accidentally sent an email to approximately 65 company employees with an attachment containing PII for roughly 130 current and former workers, including Social Security numbers, home addresses, and birth dates. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant, among other things, violated several state consumer protection statutes, and contended that workers “were ‘at imminent risk of suffering identity theft.’” The plaintiff further claimed that workers had to spend time canceling credit cards, assessing whether to apply for new Social Security numbers, and purchasing credit monitoring and identity theft protection services. While the parties reached a settlement, the court ultimately denied the settlement and dismissed the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction after finding the plaintiff lacked Article III standing because she failed to allege “an injury that is concrete and particularized and certainly impending.” According to the district court, it was “arguably a misnomer to even call this case a ‘data breach’ case,” because, “[a]t best, the data was ‘misplaced’” internally rather than accessed by a third party.
On appeal, the Second Circuit agreed with the district court, concluding that the plaintiff failed to demonstrate an increased risk of identity theft and that the cost of taking proactive measures to prevent future identity theft is insufficient to constitute an injury in fact when the threat is speculative. “This notion stems from the Supreme Court’s guidance in [Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA], where it noted that plaintiffs ‘cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending.’”
9th Circuit: Company cannot compel minor children to arbitration
On April 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court’s refusal to compel arbitration against a technology company, concluding that children are not bound by arbitration provisions in their parents’ service contracts with the company. The appeals court held that the plaintiff children, who were not signatories to the service contracts, could not be compelled to arbitration because “a party cannot be required to submit to arbitration any dispute which he has not agreed so to submit.”
In their June 2019 suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, the plaintiffs alleged that one of the corporation’s services caught and documented their communications, in violation of state wiretapping law. The defendant asserted that “the children were bound by arbitration provisions in the service contracts signed by their parents because they directly benefited from the agreements.” In affirming the district court’s decision on appeal, the Ninth Circuit agreed that the doctrine of equitable estoppel did not bind the plaintiff children to arbitrate because they “are not asserting any right or looking to enforce any duty created by the contracts between their parents and the corporation. Instead, plaintiffs bring only state statutory claims that do not depend on their parents’ contracts.”