Eighth Circuit Vacates Defense Summary Judgment on FDCPA Claim Due to Plaintiff’s Lack of Standing

Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated summary judgment for the defense on various claims under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) because the plaintiff lacked subject matter jurisdiction from the outset.

In Hekel v. Hunter Warfield, Inc., the plaintiff alleged that the defendant debt collector had included utility fees her landlord may have had no right to collect, failed to include verification information on the front of the collection letter, and applied the wrong statutory interest rate, all in violation of 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692f and 1692g. After the Minnesota district court granted summary judgment for the defendant on all claims, the plaintiff appealed.

Both the plaintiff and defendant argued the appeal on the merits, but the Eighth Circuit began by noting it had an independent obligation to determine subject-matter jurisdiction. The court ruled that while the plaintiff had made various allegations of harm in her complaint, the allegations were insufficient to establish standing. Specifically, the plaintiff had failed to establish standing in four categories of alleged damages:

• Statutory Rights and Informational Injury. The plaintiff alleged a violation of her federal statutory rights and an informational injury caused by misleading statements. However, these allegations were insufficient as a matter of law.
• Risk of Tangible Harm. Allegations of a future risk of tangible harm were also insufficient because they lacked both specificity and imminence.
• Emotional Distress. The plaintiff alleged emotional distress damages, including “‘confus[ion],’ ‘worry,’ and ‘sleeplessness.’” However, the court held that these negative emotions did not establish standing under controlling law, as they were similar to emotions previously deemed insufficient.
• Monetary Loss. While monetary loss would be sufficient to establish standing, the plaintiff’s allegations of “‘out-of-pocket costs’ and the loss of ‘time and money’” were conclusory labels that did not to establish standing. Moreover, the plaintiff had not substantiated any of her allegations of harm on summary judgment by submitting, for example, receipts, bank statements, doctor’s notes, or affidavits.

Because the district court had lacked subject matter jurisdiction, it could not grant summary judgment. The Eighth Circuit thus vacated the judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss the case.