A District Court judge in New Jersey has granted a motion to dismiss for lack of standing filed by the defendants in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act class-action, after they were accused of sending a letter that failed to identify the current creditor to whom the debt was owed and because the creditor was not licensed to collect in the state.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Jones v. JHPDE Finance et al. can be accessed by clicking here.
Back in 2018, the the defendants sent the plaintiff a collection letter, which was printed on the letterhead of a collection agency. The letter identified JHPDE as the current creditor and Citibank as the original creditor. The letter informed the plaintiff that the account has been sold to JHPDE.
The plaintiff filed the lawsuit in 2019, after which the two sides engaged in settlement discussions that proved unsuccessful. The plaintiff filed an amended complaint, which defendants sought to dismiss for lack of standing. The plaintiff filed a second amended complaint, after which the two sides engaged in mediation, which also proved unsuccessful. The defendants then filed another motion to dismiss, claiming the plaintiff lacks standing to sue.
The defendants argued that the plaintiff failed to allege how she was affected by the letter. The plaintiff did not allege, for example, that the failure to identify the current creditor caused her to pay more than she otherwise would have paid, or that it delayed repayment of the debt, or that it harmed her credit rating, or that it caused her distress, confusion, or wasted time. “Nothing in the Second Amended Complaint suggests that, had Defendants correctly identified the current creditor, Plaintiff would be in any different of a position than she is in currently,” wrote Judge Esther Salas of the District Court for the District of New Jersey. “Without more, Defendants’ nonlicensure and failure to identify the current creditor to whom the Debt is owed is exactly the type of ‘bare procedural violation’ that does not confer standing without evidence of concrete harm.”
