credit line to ensure that it received payment when a customer purchased gas at the pump there is no dispute as to the following defendants we as customers pull up to a gas station and in this instance or was of can we look at the and we're going to use a credit card pump or gas and we look at the in form at that point in time we accept that will pay for that amount of gas for what we pump it is under spirit get power and love never tayo a customer that they are that they require a hold on the customer's credit this is our case power and was breach of the implied contract by adding vade to the contract without telling the customer that's our kicks power in love preset the hole in the amount with at the customer's knowledge the unpublished northern district of illinois case to say that hypothetically we didn't we didn't use or attempt to use or credit because we didn't know but in most instances now mr thompson in love in the love case did know about it because he like some others have and ha that when you pump gas and you pump thirty five dollars worth of gas a new car and you get dean for one hundred fifty so he did go he he went back to love and ask  don't you say somewhere in your brief that if the credit card if the hold had been released the moment that he hung up the you know put the nozzle back in and divorce and when you hang the pump up and they put the whole point is that the theoretical injury to your client as opposed to an actual why i did what could happen not the gas station the defendants in this case knew when they did that it wouldn't go to be placed for a second it wouldn't going to be taken off first second they used that it was going to the credit card on for longer than the so they put one hundred fifty dollars hold on in your world if they took one hundred fifty dollars hauled off the minute you hung up the hung up the nozzle it big ok no problem  only it would be the thirty now it would be the side injury whether their powder bad it or not they could if they were told about it they could choose to walk inside and case because they cause this and they do it now think about it if there was no value in that home why would they do that particularly purposes that's the the of knowing there's money in there i know that part but i just want to make sure there's not anything they're getting in addition to that security no they get they get they get that again forty three alarms nonsense in that's what you should be charged because they know that they don't control how long the hole that's the credit card they know there's no causation they didn't cause your harm if they did they know when they require this this home and they require they know it has to be you know for a period of time it's not the credit card companies that caused the damage in this case because they know because it's a skill it's it's if if you will i didn't mean to interrupt you i'm just if they know that some third party might take some action they're responsible for the action that the intervening third party might take it's not and we never got to divest because obviously we never got to first base in this case but this that this is an agreement between the credit card companies and the defendants because the defendants are requiring now the credit card companies go along with it but if you won't as i stated if you wa caused your car your legit hot the defenders because they were required to hold without telling us and it would send it as fancy but there's nothing between the defendants and the credit card company where they tell the credit card company you have to hold consume american express in the credit card company because of the probably the arbitration actually because of the arbitration clauses in their contracts we couldn't get around  unfortunately but that's there we again saw that credit as very you or they would not have taken it but they didn't take your credit your client's credit limit is but i presume there's no credit card in the come in the country that would be issued to anybody that wouldn't have some credit limit right so you know it's him that's true that your client doesn't more limited credit so it is true that for that moment in time say they have a thousand dollar credit limit now they only have eight hundred fifty dollars it runs into a want of money so we but we never got to that point judge call your doctors out on the nordica three standing you see so we never got to develop what this case it goes to the defendants for their security purposes and if it did again and i don't mean to beat this horse to death but if it didn't have that why did they take it was defendants who kept the freeze secret powlett and loads were the folks who knew how long the freeze would last and failed to disclose that to the consumer the customer the injury can easily be traced to their conduct certainly the credit card companies would along with the defendants who are required it be done for there's article three standing there is not require that the defendants be the most immediate cause it only requires that the injuries be fairly traceable to the defendants and that's the person's case of this court in twenty fifteen i hit the ten minutes that he will see some of his time the please the court steve brody for the pilot defendants i want to address the points that the court raised with mr ball and i'll take them in the order really which which they were raised to the as to the question of what is the harm here in or of the alleged who took the alleged action that caused the alleged harm we don't think there's any harm here i think the court is correct in focusing on the credit card issuers and we see this explicitly in the complaint that was filed by the four plaintiffs who sued the pilot defendants each pla ff separately alleges and this is paragraph sixty five plaintiffs mosley but they all lead to the same thing they expected that once a hold of any amount was imposed it would be lifted as soon as they returned the fuel nozzle to the pump and so the complaint is not with the fact that a hole was placed on the parts but with the fact that once it was after they return the nozzle to the pump just larsen as you observed that it was kept on for twenty four to seventy two entirely consistent with this court's decisions in both the been a case vs the american bar association which dealt with the american bar association standard five zero three requiring the ballot and reliable test for admissions purposes for accreditation was schools and also with the m x case which dealt with the imposition of a fuel tax on fuel that was designated for duty free export  selling gas on the canadian us canadian border sort of past the point of no return into canada that's traceability as to redress ability mr ball indicated that he has an economist who has come up with a formula that would calculate interest on held credit but the district court correctly and quickly dealt with bad issue by saying that merely because you say you have an expert who's identified a formula to calculate something if it's not properly calculable as an economic injury which is what it would be then it doesn't it was a threshold matter that there's no harm here there's no injury in fact and the there is a big difference we heard her the reference to the inhofe case which was the telephone consumer protection act case and there is a big difference between the t c p a cases we have to c p s here we have the tennessee consumer protection act as well but the telephone consumer protection act cases are very different from you know what we what we see in spokeo and what this court looked at the wall versus michigan rental and the difference is in the t c p a cases congress has expressly stated what the injury is and when this court decided him off it it cited to him quote approvingly from the eleventh circuit in palm beach because it was palm beach golf center boca case where the court said that congress identified the injury in fact for purposes of standing empty c p a cases as the occupation of a fax line now those of us in this room might disagree with congress's judgment that that should constitute an injury in fact but certainly is justice scalia in the lexmark case it's it's not for the courts to second guess a situation where congress has created a right of action and that was a very different situation from wall and from spokeo and spoke it was a very good example justice alito as opinion there under the federal consumer credit reporting  act where merely alleging that somebody had spoken in this back case had published false information was not an allegation of a concrete harm and that the ninth circuit in focusing on the particular lies allegation of a violation had not looked at whether there was a concrete injury and for that reason the case was remanded to the ninth circuit with instructions to look at that that's the same thing that this court did in wall versus michigan rental the case with parallels to what we see here where the court said there may have been a technical violation by the failure to put a apartment security deposit in do it properly regulated bank and to disclose what that bank was on the lease but you got the security policy back so there may have been a you know a procedural issue a technical violation of the state statute so let me ask you about the causation if or the injury actually if if the if the point if there had been a named plaintiff who actually tried to buy something and was denied the ability to buy something using the credit card would you not agree that there was would be an injury and that in that circumstance there could potentially be an injury in a circumstance with a different plaintiff with a different set of facts you know alternately if if that plaintiff patty card denied for insufficient funds tied specifically to the existence of the hole before it was released by the card issuer and that plaintiff reached into his or her wallet and took out a twenty dollar bill and paid cash there may still be no injury but you could consider could conceivably be an injury there but i think you would still argue that there's no redress ability or traceability and that for that plaintiff as well traceability and redress ability would be a very fact specific  inquiry i think depending on the ultimate result of that inability to make the purchase and would you argue that that's still the fault of the credit card company not the gas station i think you would have serious traceability concerns in that circumstance because you would run into the same thing we see been oh in the same thing we see an amex where it's the independent action of top entirely within the discretion of the issuer that led to what i'm getting at here let me finish this second what i'm getting at is whether or not the case should be dismissed with prejudice or without prejudice so it seems to me if the problem here is traceability that that would be a reason why this should be dismissed with prejudice because that would apply to any conceivable point of whereas if the problem here is just injury then it should be without prejudice because conceivably there could be a plaintiff out there who could bring this claim who would have the requisite standing and i would say absolutely not in this case because these pl have affirmatively alleged facts that show that they do not have standing on if they don't meet the threshold on any of the three requirements from for article three standing in case law tells us that a plaintiff one a plaintiff without standing does not have standing to add another plaintiff won and two there needs to be standing at the inception of the litigation for there to be jurisdiction and without it so any amendment here would have to take the form of adding a different plaintiff with a different set of allegations this case with prejudice would have no of the ability of a  is absolutely correct and so in this case the dismissal with prejudice was entirely correct for the reason that the only way to a man would be to find a new the court chris riley on behalf of the law as defendant i will be brief other than to just address a couple quick points the only real difference that the plaintiffs have alleged between loves and pilot in this case deals with the plaintiff and they say that mr thompson had knowledge of his of the hold because of an app you know that he learned of it during the pendency of the hold we don't believe that that has any impact on whether or not he suffered an injury because he has still not alleged any particular injury of fact he still is not alleged to be that he this card had a limit that the whole caused him to reach a limit that he attempted to make a purchase that he couldn't make a purchase because of the hold and then he didn't have any other means it's a little bit the that the injury that would address that part of the lawsuit but it would address the larger pool it still doesn't address the injury even if the allegation about a failure to disclose just setting forth the basis of his claim but not the basis of an injury so the failure to disclose still must cause an actual injury and to cause an actual injury needs to make the allegations of fact that would not make it to the hypothetical injury judge given that you had brought up earlier you know if he had a credit limit if it reached the credit limit hold if you tried to make a purchase and if you could make the purchase then there might be an injury and i would and we've mentioned this in our briefs even if he had tried to make a purchase and he couldn't make the purchase that's still not necessarily an injury if he could have as mr brodie said paid cash had another credit card had a debit card maybe because he hasn't he hasn't made any of those in any of those arguments at all  ask about this causation point so if that injury is really due to the twenty four hours forty eight seventy two hours then that's placed on by the credit card companies not by you that all seems right to me if you can't control the acts of intervening third parties but presumably you have some kind of contractual relationship with american express discover be some master card and if if you had a contract with them where you knew the cell will put three days on discovery but twenty four hours now should we say that you are actually responsible it is traceable to you because you know once you place that hole it's going to put set in motion seventy two hour hold that pits of the said that's used because you have a contractual relationship with these that lets you know it's going to be seventy two hours there's no allegation in the complaint about the about any kind of contractual relationship whereby either of the defendants had knowledge that the hole would be for any particular time so there hasn't been an allegation about that in in the case i still believe though that that would still raise the same traceability issues just because even if we have knowledge is not our knowledge that's causing the injury it's the independent acts of the of the current issue are but they're not independent if they're obligated to do it by a contract contract with you i mean well they they have not alleged there's no allegation that it was the it was love or pilot that obligated the card issuer to to to keep the hold in place for a certain period time hasn't been an allegation is exactly the opposite they specifically allege that it's the card issuer who determines the length of the hold so they specifically allege the opposite of that and so without an allegation that there is some requirement by either loves or pilot on the duration of the hold we don't believe that still that creates a new a redress ability earn any traceability issues because of based on the allegations in the complaint sell the other aspect of that and automatically gets one hundred twenty five dollars for a period of seventy two hours and then the money comes back to the card company you know there's not an allegation so that we haven't been got any value from this place buy you some time value of money in the last issue  standing in this in this president to make sure i understand what your position is then so if we dismissed with prejudice then if if there is another customer out there who wants to bring another class action against your  merits under twelve b six they would have to say that they didn't have knowledge and that there were not stickers on the pump and those kind and in addition a class represented could could proceed sumi they met all the requirements of a class action yet they would still have to make all those allegations in the class the class members themselves would have to fall within that so there would still have to meet the rule twenty three requirements for a class thank you there being a contractual relationship between pilot well i don't and or again labs or and the various credit card companies and and maybe we should have but yeah well i mean but but we can only standing based on the allegations in your complaint but the pow it themselves in and was wrote that they require they require this pre authorization they're the or retail stores or gasoline require their pre authorization oh i just think it takes a little bit of common sense to understand that they wouldn't be requiring well but even if it is you seem to think there's a zero sum game here that just because something might have value to them means that it injures you and i'm not sure why that is true why is it t your credit they're not using your credit to purchase something else they're limiting maybe they're limiting your ability to use your credit although they're limiting their liability credit after we have agreed for me to pay three dollars and forty cents a gallon that's that's the group that's that's where it is