A District Court judge in Ohio has dismissed a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case because the plaintiff lacked standing to sue, even though he did allege some claims that have been considered sufficient for standing in the past (at least to my non-lawyer eyes).
The Background: The plaintiff was sent a letter from the defendant last February. The plaintiff claims to have sent two disputes and requests for validation within the 30-day validation window, but never received a response from the defendant.
- The plaintiff filed suit, alleging the defendants violated provisions of the FDCPA, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and various state laws in Ohio.
The Ruling: To survive an attack on standing, the plaintiff must show he suffered a concrete injury. With respect to suffering a financial harm, the plaintiff points to the costs he incurred for postage in sending the dispute and verification letters. But that type of harm is “self-inflicted” noted Judge Douglas B. Cole of the District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and doesn’t confer standing unless it is paired with another concrete injury that is either current or impending.
- Looking to the plaintiff’s other claims, they are not concrete enough to convince Judge Cole that the plaintiff has standing because he never alleges any facts to support the inferences in his complaint.
- “In sum, between the types of injuries Crawford alleges and the vagueness with which he pleads them, he has not shown that he has standing under Article III,” Judge Cole wrote. “So the Court must grant Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss.”
