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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.”
District Court certifies class challenging online lender’s rates
On April 23, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted class certification to residents who received loans from an online lender, allowing them to pursue class claims based on allegations they were charged interest rates that exceeded state limits for lenders claiming tribal immunity. The class of borrowers include California residents who collected loans from an Oklahoma-based tribe, and California residents who received loans from a Montana-based tribe before June 2016. The district court held that the proposed class met the requirements for certification, including that the borrowers brought a common, predominant claim, and found that data from a separate settlement, which contained defendant’s consumer-level account information, could be used to establish damages. Although the defendants highlighted an error in the data regarding a plaintiff's residency, the court held that such an error was not substantial enough to undermine the entire data set, because “[d]espite the error … [the] consumer-level data for each transaction provides a fair basis for identifying the scope of the class and aggregate damages for the California class.”
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.”
Supreme Court: FTC may not seek restitution or disgorgement under 13(b)
On April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s decision in AMG Capital Management v. FTC, holding that Section 13(b) of the FTC Act “does not authorize the Commission to seek, or a court to award, equitable monetary relief such as restitution or disgorgement.” The opinion impacts petitioners who were ordered in 2018 to pay an approximately $1.3 billion judgment for allegedly operating a deceptive payday lending scheme and making false and misleading representations about loan costs and payments (covered by InfoBytes here). At the time, the 9th Circuit rejected the petitioner’s challenge to the judgment (based on, among other things, the argument that the FTC Act only allows the court to issue injunctions), concluding that a district court may grant any ancillary relief under the FTC Act, including restitution. As previously covered by InfoBytes, last year the Court granted review and consolidated two cases that had reached different conclusions regarding the availability of restitution under § 13(b): (i) the 9th Circuit’s decision in FTC v. AMG Capital Management; and (ii) the 7th Circuit’s ruling in FTC v. Credit Bureau Center (covered by InfoBytes here), which held that Section 13(b) does not give the FTC power to order restitution.
In examining “whether Congress, by enacting §13(b) and using the words ‘permanent injunction,’ granted the Commission authority to obtain monetary relief directly from courts and effectively bypass the requirements of the administrative process,” the Court unanimously held that § 13(b) “does not explicitly authorize the Commission to obtain court-ordered monetary relief,” and that “such relief is foreclosed by the structure and history of the Act.” As such, the Court determined that it is “highly unlikely” that Congress would grant the FTC authority to circumvent traditional § 5 administrative proceedings by collecting restitution or disgorgement as an equitable relief power. Moreover, the Court discussed § 19 of the FTC Act, which was enacted two years after § 13(b) and “authorizes district courts to grant ‘such relief as the court finds necessary to redress injury to consumers,’ including through the ‘refund of money or return of property.’” The Court noted that since § 19 has limited authority and is only available against those who have engaged in an unfair or deceptive act or practice through which the FTC has issued a final cease and desist order (i.e. through an administrative proceeding), the Court found it “highly unlikely that Congress would have enacted provisions expressly authorizing conditioned and limited monetary relief if the Act, via §13(b), had already implicitly allowed the Commission to obtain that same monetary relief and more without satisfying those conditions and limitations.” Further, the Court stated that it was unlikely that Congress would have granted the FTC authority to “so readily” circumvent traditional § 5 administrative proceedings.
The Court stated that nothing in its opinion, however, prohibits the FTC “from using its § 5 or § 19 authority to obtain restitution on behalf of consumers,” adding that if the Commission “believes that authority too cumbersome or otherwise inadequate, it is, of course, free to ask Congress to grant it further remedial authority”—a request that the FTC made before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on Oversight of the Federal Trade Commission in 2020 and again on April 20, 2021 (covered by InfoBytes here). The Court reversed the judgment against the petitioners and remanded the case for further proceedings in line with its opinion.
FTC acting Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter issued a statement following the Court’s decision: “With this ruling, the Court has deprived the FTC of the strongest tool we had to help consumers when they need it most. We urge Congress to act swiftly to restore and strengthen the powers of the agency so we can make wronged consumers whole.”
9th Circuit will rehear Oakland’s Fair Housing Act case en banc
On April 20, a majority of nonrecused active judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated a three-judge panel’s 2020 Fair Housing Act (FHA) decision and ordered that the case be reheard en banc. As previously covered by InfoBytes, the City of Oakland sued a national bank alleging violations of the FHA and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, claiming the bank provided minority borrowers mortgage loans with less favorable terms than similarly situated non-minority borrowers, leading to disproportionate defaults and foreclosures causing (i) decreased property tax revenue; (ii) increases in the city’s expenditures; and (iii) neutralized spending in Oakland’s fair-housing programs. Last year, the three-judge panel affirmed both the district court’s denial of the bank’s motion to dismiss claims for decreased property tax revenue, as well as the court’s dismissal of Oakland’s claims for increased city expenditures. Regarding Oakland’s alleged municipal expenditure injuries, the panel agreed with the district court that Oakland’s complaint failed to account for independent variables that may have contributed or caused such injuries and that those alleged injuries therefore did not satisfy the FHA’s proximate-cause requirement. The panel further held that Oakland’s claims for injunctive and declaratory relief were also subject to the FHA’s proximate-cause requirement, and that on remand, the district court must determine whether Oakland’s allegations satisfied this requirement. The bank filed a petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc last October, arguing, among other things, that the panel had “fashioned a looser, FHA-specific proximate-case standard” in conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions involving the City of Miami (covered by InfoBytes here). Oakland responded by noting, however, that the panel’s decision is consistent with the City of Miami decisions, and that, among other things, the Supreme Court’s decision did not establish “precise boundaries of proximate cause” but rather asked lower courts to define “the contours of proximate cause under the FHA and decide how that standard applies to the City’s claims for lost property-tax revenue and increased municipal expenses.”
District Court: Identity theft alone is not enough to remove allegedly fraudulent debt from credit report
On April 20, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California granted a defendant debt collector’s motion for summary judgment, ruling that claiming to be a victim of identity theft alone is not enough to have a collection item removed from a credit report, or to give rise to an FDCPA violation. In 2014, the plaintiff purportedly obtained a payday loan from a lender who ultimately assigned the loan to the defendant for collection. In 2019, the plaintiff called the defendant to verbally dispute the debt as fraudulent after seeing the loan on her credit report. The defendant continued to report the loan to the consumer reporting agencies (CRAs), but marked the account as disputed, and informed the plaintiff of measures she needed to take to have the item removed from her credit report, including instructions for filing an identity theft affidavit. After an attorney representing the plaintiff submitted a formal written dispute of the debt, the defendant responded with the required verification and continued reporting the debt until the account was recalled by the lender. At this point the loan record was deleted and the defendant stopped reporting the loan account to the CRAs. The plaintiff filed suit alleging the defendant violated FDCPA Sections 1692e and 1692f and various state laws by continuing to report the debt after it was notified of the potential fraud. The court disagreed, stating, “there was nothing about [the defendant’s] statements that would confuse or mislead even the least sophisticated debtor’s attempt to remove the fraudulent account from their credit report,” the court wrote, adding that none of the defendant’s communications were false, deceptive, or misleading, nor did they undermine the plaintiff’s “ability to intelligently choose her action concerning the loan account.”
11th Circuit: Outsourcing debt collection letters can violate FDCPA
On April 21, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that transmitting a consumer’s private data to a commercial mail vendor to generate debt collection letters violates Section 1692c(b) of the FDCPA because it is considered transmitting a consumer’s private data “in connection with the collection of any debt.” According to the opinion, the plaintiff’s medical debt was assigned to the defendant debt collector, who, in turn, hired a mail vendor to produce a dunning letter in the course of collecting the outstanding debt. In order to produce the letter, information about the plaintiff was allegedly electronically transmitted from the defendant to the mail vendor, including his status as a debtor, the exact balance of the debt, its origin, and other personal information. The plaintiff filed suit, claiming the disclosure of the information to the mail vendor violated the FDCPA’s third-party disclosure provisions, which the district court dismissed for failure to state a claim.
On appeal, the 11th Circuit reviewed whether a violation of § 1692c(b) gives rise to a concrete injury under Article III, and whether the defendant’s communication with the mail vendor was “in connection with the collection of any debt.” In reversing the district court’s ruling, the appellate court determined that communicating debt-related personal information with the third-party mail vendor is a concrete injury under Article III. Even though the plaintiff did not allege a tangible injury, the appellate court held, in a matter of first impression, that under the circumstances, the plaintiff alleged a communication “in connection with the collection of any debt” within the meaning of § 1692c(b). In choosing this interpretation over the defendant’s “‘industry practice argument,’” in which the defendant referred to the widespread use of mail vendors and the relative lack of FDCPA suits brought against debt collectors who use these vendors, the 11th Circuit recognized that its interpretation of the statute may require debt collectors to in-source many of the services previously outsourced to third-parties at a potentially great cost. “We recognize, as well, that those costs may not purchase much in the way of ‘real’ consumer privacy, as we doubt that the [mail vendors] of the world routinely read, care about, or abuse the information that debt collectors transmit to them,” the appellate court wrote, adding, “Even so, our obligation is to interpret the law as written, whether or not we think the resulting consequences are particularly sensible or desirable.”
Massachusetts bankruptcy court: No recoupment absent proof of emotional distress
On April 12, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts entered judgment in favor of a national bank, determining that the plaintiff failed to, among other things, “carry his burden to prove that he incurred injury” concerning economic or emotional distress damages as a result of the original lender’s violations. During the plaintiff’s chapter 13 bankruptcy proceeding, he initiated an adversary proceeding against the bank and a loan servicer for violations of Massachusetts law related to the origination, underwriting, and closing of his mortgage loan. According to the memorandum, the plaintiff contended he was approved for a loan modification after he struggled to stay current on his loan. While the loan modification did not forgive any of the plaintiff’s outstanding debt, the plaintiff agreed to the terms, entered into a modification agreement with the bank (who was the successor by assignment of the original lender), and eventually filed a chapter 13 petition. The bankruptcy court was ultimately called to review the plaintiff’s objection to the bank’s proof of claim filed in his chapter 13 case, in which the plaintiff invoked the doctrine of recoupment, bringing a claim against the bank for damages under Chapter 93A of Massachusetts’ consumer protection law.
Upon review, the court determined, among other things, that the plaintiff’s loan was “presumptively unfair and also unfair in the specific circumstances in which it was made” and that “[n]o reasonably diligent lender would have approved the loan to [the plaintiff] without taking steps to independently verify critical financial information.” Moreover, the court determined that the original lender’s conduct was “unfair and deceptive” under Chapter 93A. The court further noted that Massachusetts law states that while “an assignee ordinarily cannot be held liable for damages based upon the acts of its assignor,” under “the common law principle that an assignee stands in the assignor’s shoes, ‘assignees may be liable under [Chapter] 93A for equitable remedies such as cancellation of a debt or rescission of a contract’”—a context under which the plaintiff sought to have the bank’s claim “reduced by recoupment in the amount of his damages caused by [the original lender’s] unfair and deceptive acts.” However, the court noted that because the borrower failed to “carry his burden to prove that he incurred injury as a result of [the original lender’s] violation,” he “failed to prove an amount for recoupment in reduction” of the proof of claim the bank asserted against him.
Court rules software service provider did not eavesdrop when capturing website data for retailer
On April 15, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed class claims alleging a software-services provider for a clothing retailer wiretapped consumers’ communication with the retailer in violation of California’s Invasion of Privacy Act and the California Constitution. The software at issue was sold to the service provider’s clients to capture and analyze data so companies can see how website visitors use their sites. The plaintiff alleged that during a visit to one of the retailer’s websites, the defendant’s software captured information including when she visited, the length of her visit, her IP address and location, browser type, and the operating system on her device. The plaintiff further claimed that, in addition to the aforementioned information, the software also captured personally identifiable information such as email, shipping addresses, and payment-card information. The defendant moved to dismiss, which was granted by the court. In dismissing the action, the court referenced its dismissal of virtually identical claims against another software-services provider and ruled that the defendant’s recording of activities such as keystrokes, mouse clicks, and page scrolling does not amount to wiretapping. “[The defendant] is not a third-party eavesdropper,” the court wrote, “[i]t is a vendor that provides a software service that allows its clients to monitor their website traffic.” Moreover, the court determined that information—“such as IP addresses, locations, browser types, and operating systems”—is not “content” under the plaintiff’s Section 631(a) claim.