For anyone facing a lawsuit over sending an undated Model Validation Notice — or anyone worried about facing such a suit — a District Court judge in Illinois has granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss a suit accusing it of violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because it sent the plaintiff an undated MVN, ruling the plaintiff lacked standing to sue because she did not suffer a concrete injury.
A copy of the ruling in Bemero v. Lloyd & McDaniel can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff received a Model Validation Notice from the defendant, which was not dated. The MVN included an itemization table that indicated the plaintiff owed $4,596.33 as of August 18, 2020. The table also indicated that “between August 18, 2020 and today” no interest was charged, no fees were incurred, and no credits were made to the account. The bottom of the table informed the plaintiff that the “Total amount of the debt now” was $4,596.33.
Because the letter was undated, the plaintiff had no idea when “today” or “now” referred to, according to the complaint. The plaintiff was misled about the status of the debt and the absence of a date made the notice seem “illegitimate.” Among the claims made by the plaintiff were:
- It made her uncertain about the letter’s legitimacy
- She “would have pursued a different course of action” but for the confusing nature of the letter, though she doesn’t say exactly what she would have done;
- “[T]he funds [she] could have used to pay all or part of the alleged debt were spent elsewhere,”
- Her “reliance on the Letter, and the resulting inaction/non-payment,” led L&M to disseminate negative information about her to credit reporting agencies
- She “spent time and money in an effort to mitigate the risk of future financial and reputational harm” resulting from the information disseminated about her nonpayment, though she doesn’t provide any detail
The plaintiff accused the defendant of violating Sections 1692d, 1692e, 1692f, and 1692g of the FDCPA.
Unfortunately for the plaintiff, arguing a negative — the content of the letter kept her from making a payment — is not a concrete injury and that means she doesn’t have standing to sue, ruled Judge Matthew F. Kennelly of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Even the allegation that not paying the debt negatively impacted her credit score was enough for Judge Kennelly to find the plaintiff had standing to sue.
“One can imagine a case in which a plaintiff plausibly alleges that absent confusion, she would have paid the debt and thereby increased her creditworthiness in some concrete way-but Bemero does not allege that here,” Judge Kennelly wrote.
