Fourth Circuit Weighs in on Article III Standing

The Fourth Circuit recently examined the issue of Article III standing in the context of the FDCPA.  In Ben-Davies v. Blibaum & Associates, P.A., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 9667 (4^th Cir. June 1, 2017), the consumer sought to assert an FDCPA claim against a law firm, contending that the law firm attempted to collect a debt arising out of a state court judgment by demanding payment of an incorrect sum based on the calculation of an interest rate not authorized by law.  The consumer alleged that as a “direct consequence” she “suffered and continues to suffer” “emotional distress, anger and frustration.”  Id. at *6.  The district court dismissed the FDCPA claim for lack of standing under Article IIII, concluding that Ben-Davies had not established an injury in fact.

In an unpublished opinion, the Fourth Circuit reversed.  In examining the “injury in fact” component of standing, the court noted that “injury in fact” is not limited to financial or economic losses but can be shown when the plaintiff shows that she suffered an invasion of a legally protected interest that is concrete and particularized and actual or imminent.  In this case, the court was influenced by the fact that “[t]his was not a case where the plaintiff simply alleged a bare procedural violation [of the FDCPA], divorced from any concrete harm.”  Id.  Instead, the court took the position that the allegations of actual existing harms that affected here personally and specifically, the allegations of “emotional distress, anger and frustration: were sufficient to establish the existence of injury in fact.

A point of concern for the ARM industry is the fact that the court did not limit its review of the matters to the pleading (the motion before the court was a motion based upon Rule 12(b)(1)) but instead included “documents explicitly incorporated into the complaint” as well as additional documents submitted by Ben-Davies which “do not conflict with the allegations and that are integral to the complaint and authentic.”  Id. at *3-4.