The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin recently held that Synchrony Bank did not violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) when it mistakenly requested a consumer’s credit report. In Carlson v. Synchrony Bank, No. 21-cv-077-wmc, 2022 WL 1302841 (W.D. Wis. May 2, 2022), Synchrony requested plaintiff’s credit report after a third party accidentally provided plaintiff’s social security number in connection with a credit application. When plaintiff learned that the account was opened, he contacted Synchrony to advise that he did not open the ...
In Pierre v. Midland Credit Management, Inc., — F.4th —, 2022 WL 986441 (7th Cir. Apr. 1, 2022), the Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a claim under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”), finding that the plaintiff and the putative class which she represented suffered no concrete injury and therefore lacked Article III standing under the framework set out in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016) and TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190 (2021). Plaintiff Renetrice Pierre filed a class action lawsuit, seeking to represent a class of Illinois ...
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016), federal courts have continued to examine what is an injury in fact under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”). On April 4, 2022, the Eighth Circuit provided instructions on remand to dismiss a FCRA class action due to lack of standing in Schumacher v. SC Data Ctr., Inc., --- F.4th ----, 2022 WL 997742 (8th Cir. Apr. 4, 2022). Ria Schumacher applied for a position at SC Data and during the application process answered “no” to a question asking if she had been convicted of a felony. In connection ...
In Beal v. Outfield Brew House, LLC, --- F.4th ---, 2022 WL 868697 (8th Cir. Mar. 24, 2022), the Eighth Circuit considered whether an automated marketing system that was used to send promotional text messages to randomly selected phone numbers qualified as an ATDS within the purview of the TCPA. See id. at *1. The Eighth Circuit concluded that the automated marketing system did not "produce" telephone numbers to be called and, therefore, did not qualify as an ATDS. See id.
The case arose because the Appellants received promotional text messages from Outfield Brew House, LLC and/or ...
In Woods v. LVNV Funding, LLC, --- F. 4th --- (2022), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of FDCPA and FCRA claims based upon the defendants’ collection and reporting of a fraudulently opened account.
The plaintiff, Kevin Woods, alleged someone opened an American Airlines credit card account in his name and purchased a one-way flight. American closed the account and sold it to LVNV Funding, LLC, which placed it with Resurgent Capital Services, L.P. for collection. When Woods received collection letters, he disputed the debt and told Resurgent the account ...
The latest update surrounding Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services, Inc., Case No. 19-14434 centers not on the Eleventh Circuit or the Hunstein decision itself but on the district courts nationwide that are considering numerous copycat cases relying on the Hunstein reasoning.
In one such recent case, Nabozny v. Optio Solutions, LLC, Case No. 21-cv-297-jdp, 2022 WL 293092 (W.D. Wis. Feb. 1, 2022), a district judge from the Western District of Wisconsin considered, and rejected, the plaintiff’s Hunstein argument, finding that Hunstein lacked persuasive ...
In the latest development in Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services, Inc., Case No. 19-14434, the full Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated the previous panel’s opinion and will rehear the case en banc at a later date. In the original Hunstein opinion, the court reversed the dismissal of an action brought under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) that alleged a debt collector had violated the third-party disclosure provisions of the FDCPA by using a third-party mail vendor. The decision sent shockwaves through the debt collection ...
On November 30, 2021, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection's ("CFPB") October and December 2020 Final Rules take effect. Among other things, the October and December 2020 Final Rules address communications with consumers under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA"). Created in 1977, the FDCPA was intended to "eliminate abusive debt collection practices by debt collectors, to insure that those debt collectors who refrain from using abusive debt collection practices are not competitively disadvantaged, and to promote consistent state action to protect ...
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has issued its ruling on the motion for rehearing in Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services, Inc., Case No. 19-14434 but most of the troublesome aspects of the Court’s panel opinion remain. In Hunstein, the Eleventh Circuit reversed the dismissal of a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) lawsuit alleging that the Defendant, a debt collector, had violated third party disclosure prohibitions in the FDCPA by using a mail vendor to mail its dunning letters. The Plaintiff’s theory is that the use of such vendors ...
On August 31, 2021, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a summary judgment decision from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and remanded the action with instructions to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. See Wadsworth v. Kross, Lieberman & Stone, Inc., No. 19-1400, 2021 WL 3877930 (7th Cir. 2021). The Seventh Circuit reasoned Plaintiff’s lack of Article III standing with respect to her claims brought pursuant to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”), 15 U.S.C. § § 1692 et seq.
As background ...