The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of two collection-related lawsuits including one that was brought against a nonprofit operation that buys and forgives unpaid medical debts. The plaintiff has filed lawsuits against more than a dozen creditors and collection operations in the past two years. Both of the affirmations from the Eighth Circuit agreed with the District Court judges that the plaintiff did not have standing to sue in federal court.
The background: In one case, the plaintiff received three collection letters from the defendant in July and August of 2023. After receiving the first letter, which appeared to be an initial collection letter or a Model Validation Notice, the plaintiff disputed the debt, requested verification, and requested the defendant cease communications with her. The dispute letter was returned to sender.
- She alleged six violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act — communicating after receiving a cease communications request, using language or symbols on an envelope that indicated the letter was from a debt collector, for falsely representing the character or legal status of a debt, for making false representations, and for accessing her credit report twice within a 30-day period without a permissible purpose.
- A District Court judge granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss, agreeing that the emotional distress the plaintiff claims she suffered was not enough for her to have standing to sue.
- The same judge made the same ruling in the second case. In this complaint, the plaintiff accused a nonprofit organization and a credit reporting agency of violating the FCRA for accessing her credit report without a permissible purpose — the nonprofit was doing so in order to determine whether the plaintiff was eligible for medical debt relief.
- The plaintiff appealed both cases to the Eighth Circuit and the Eighth Circuit didn’t see any reason to reverse the lower court’s rulings.
The rulings: In both cases, the Appeals Court said it concluded the district court did not err in granting the motions to dismiss. The only change that the appeals court made was to change the dismissals to be without prejudice, because they were made on jurisdictional grounds.
Read ruling #1. Read ruling #2
