It’s not a ruling on the merits of sending an undated Model Validation Notice, but a District Court judge — this time in California — has dismissed a plaintiff’s Fair Debt Collection Practices Act class action, ruling that the plaintiff did not suffer a concrete injury and thus does not have standing to sue.
The Background: The plaintiff incurred a medical debt that was placed with the defendant for collection. The defendant sent the plaintiff an undated collection letter that referenced how much was owed as of “today” and “now.”
- The plaintiff filed this class-action lawsuit, saying he was misled about the status of the date and that letters without dates seem illegitimate, among other claims. Not including the date was akin to withholding a material piece of information that cause an informational injury to the plaintiff who was unable to make a payment on the debt because the defendant misstated the balance by failing to include the fact that interest would continue to accrue from the date of the letter going forward. Not including the date resulted in the plaintiff not making payment, to his financial and reputational detriment, he claimed.
The Ruling: Looking at the other rulings that have been issued in undated MVN cases — all of them from New York — Judge Jennifer L. Thurston of the District Court for the Eastern District of California saw no reason to disagree.
- The allegations made by the plaintiff were not sufficient to rise to the level of having suffered a concrete injury, Judge Thurston ruled. Claiming to have lost personal time does not help the plaintiff clear the threshold of having suffered a concrete injury because doing so would allow any litigant to manufacture standing by inflicting harm on themselves.
- “Nor does the Court afford weight to Plaintiff’s barebones and conclusory allegations that he suffered financial and reputational harm, emotional harm and anxiety, and felt misled and suspicious over the dunning letter,” Judge Thurston wrote.
- The judge did give the plaintiff one chance to amend his complaint to show how he suffered a concrete and particularized injury.
