A District Court judge in Ohio has denied a defendant’s motion to dismiss a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case, ruling the plaintiff has standing because he was forced to defend himself in a collection lawsuit.
The background: The plaintiff received a collection letter in November 2023 seeking payment on an alleged credit‑card debt. He mailed a dispute letter tpo the defendant, requesting validation of the debt. The defendant did not provide the requested validation, according to the complaint, and instead filed a collection lawsuit.
- When the state court later ordered discovery, the defendant produced validation documents in August 2024 — nine months after the initial request.
- The plaintiff filed this suit, alleging the defendant violated the FDCPA by including an unjust‑enrichment claim in its collection lawsuit that Ohio law bars when a written contract exists, and for pursuing litigation before mailing debt validation.
The ruling: The defendant attempted to argue that the plaintiff did not have standing to sue because he did not suffer a concrete injury, but Judge Susan J. Dlott of the District Court for the Southern District of Ohio rejected that argument, ruling that the plaintiff plausibly alleged “concrete” injuries sufficient for Article III standing.
- On the first claim, the court said the plaintiff’s need to defend against a baseless unjust‑enrichment count mirrors the harm the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has recognized when a consumer faces a lawsuit an opposing party “had no right to bring in the first place.”
- On the second claim, Judge Dlott found a “downstream consequence” flowing from the failure to validate, that being the plaintiff’s continued involvement in litigation, distinguishing the case from purely “informational injury” scenarios the Supreme Court has deemed lack the concrete injury needed for standing.
- “Having to defend against a lawsuit that the opposing party ‘had no right to bring in the first place’ is the type of concrete injury that meets the injury‑in‑fact requirement,” Judge Dlott wrote, adopting language from the Sixth Circuit’s Bouye decision.
