A District Court judge in Kansas has granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act class action, ruling that the plaintiff lacked standing to sue after accusing a law firm of failing to redact the plaintiff’s personal information from an exhibit filed in an underlying collection lawsuit.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Sims v. Kahrs Law Offices can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff applied for a personal loan, but never finished the application or received any funds. The defendant, on behalf of the lender, filed a collection lawsuit against the plaintiff, attaching an exhibit to the complain that listed the plaintiff’s bank account number and routing number, as well as her name, address, and phone number, which the defendant failed to redact. The collection suit was ultimately dismissed. The plaintiff filed suit, informing the lender that the exhibit was filed without being redacted, at which point the lender sought to have the exhibit sealed, but alleging that her personal information was publicly available for almost a year.
The first strike against the plaintiff was in failing to allege that her personal information had any monetary value, and how that value was lost due to the disclosure of her personal information, noted Judge John W. Broomes of the District Court for the District of Kansas. Strike two was that the risk of having her identity stolen is not enough for her to have standing — because that allegation is nothing more than conclusory, Judge Broomes wrote. Strike three was the emotional distress claim, which also fell short of conferring standing.
“… the court finds that Plaintiff has failed to sufficiently establish that any of her alleged harms are ones that Congress intended to protect against when enacting the FDCPA,” Judge Broomes wrote. “Plaintiff, however, fails to identify any authority to suggest that Congress would view the failure to redact a loan agreement filed as an exhibit to a state court petition as an unfair or unconscionable means to collect a debt. Further, the court fails to see how this conduct, which Plaintiff has characterized as negligent, could be re-characterized as an unfair or unconscionable means to collect a debt. Nor does Plaintiff show that Congress had in view the types of harms she alleges here – lost value of her account number; risk of future harm from disclosure of her account number; or garden variety anxiety and emotional harm from disclosure of her account number – when it passed the FDCPA.”
