In the 

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 23-2512 

DEMONA FREEMAN, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v.

OCWEN LOAN SERVICING, LLC,

and BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division. 

No. 1:18-cv-03844 — Tanya Walton Pratt, Chief Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED FEBRUARY 5, 2024 — DECIDED JULY 12, 2024 

____________________ 

Before ROVNER, BRENNAN, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. 

KIRSCH, Circuit Judge. To finance the purchase of her home, 

Demona Freeman secured a loan, which was assigned to the 

Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon). She fell behind on 

her mortgage payments, and BNY Mellon filed a foreclosure 

action against her. Freeman then filed for bankruptcy. She

later completed all payments required under her bankruptcy 

plan and cured the pre-petition mortgage default. Despite
2 No. 23-2512 

these payments, Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC, the servicer of 

the loan, inaccurately reported the loan as delinquent and began rejecting Freeman’s monthly payments (demanding instead that she cure the default). Because of Ocwen’s erroneous 

reporting that Freeman defaulted on her loan, BNY Mellon

brought a second foreclosure action against her but eventually agreed to voluntarily dismiss it. Freeman subsequently

sued, alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act 

(FCRA), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681 et seq., and the Fair Debt Collection 

Practices Act (FDCPA), id. §§ 1692 et seq. The district court 

dismissed the FCRA claim and entered summary judgment 

on the FDCPA claim. Because Freeman failed to state an 

FCRA claim and lacks standing to bring an FDCPA claim, we 

affirm. 

I 

Demona Freeman purchased a home. To finance the purchase, she secured a loan, which was assigned to the Bank of 

New York Mellon and serviced by Ocwen Loan Servicing, 

LLC. BNY Mellon filed a foreclosure action against Freeman 

after she fell behind on her mortgage payments. Freeman then 

filed for bankruptcy. She eventually made the necessary payments to obtain an order of discharge in the bankruptcy. 

However, Ocwen’s records reflected an inaccurate loan 

payment due date. As a result, the loan erroneously appeared 

delinquent, and Ocwen considered Freeman in default on her 

loan. Ocwen told her that because of the loan’s default status,

it would only accept a payment that would cure the default, 

not a regular monthly payment. And because Ocwen erroneously determined that Freeman defaulted on her loan, BNY

Mellon filed a second foreclosure action against her, which it 
No. 23-2512 3 

later voluntarily dismissed after investigations and corresponding corrections to the loan. 

While Freeman was considered in default on her loan, she

sent various correspondence to Ocwen, stating that it had 

committed errors in servicing her loan. As part of its collection practices, Ocwen called Freeman over 12 times in a 

month. It also sent agents to Freeman’s home to conduct door 

knocks and leave tags on her door about once a week for 

nearly three years. She later sued Ocwen, alleging violations 

of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b), and 

the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692k. (She 

also sued BNY Mellon, but on appeal, she does not dispute 

the district court’s disposition of her claims against it.) Freeman amended her complaint twice, but the court denied her 

third request to amend because the deadline for amendment 

had passed, and she had not shown good cause. Ocwen 

moved to dismiss, and the court granted the motion as to 

Freeman’s FCRA claim. Ocwen subsequently moved for summary judgment on Freeman’s FDCPA claim, which the court 

granted for lack of standing. Freeman appealed both rulings. 

On appeal, she contends that Ocwen violated the FCRA 

by failing to conduct a reasonable investigation after being 

notified by consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) that she disputed Ocwen’s reporting of her loan as delinquent. Freeman

also asserts that Ocwen violated the FDCPA, arguing that 

Ocwen’s erroneous reporting and collection practices caused 

her to suffer various injuries. We take these arguments in 

turn.
4 No. 23-2512 

II

A 

We first address Freeman’s FCRA claim. We review de 

novo a district court’s dismissal for failure to state a claim, 

“accepting as true all well-pleaded facts and drawing reasonable inferences in [Freeman’s] favor.” Peterson v. Wexford 

Health Sources, Inc., 986 F.3d 746, 751 (7th Cir. 2021) (quotation 

omitted). Freeman must allege “only enough facts to state a 

claim to relief that is plausible on its face,” Bell Atl. Corp. v. 

Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007), but “[t]hreadbare recitals of 

the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice,” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 

678 (2009). 

Under the FCRA, if a consumer notifies a CRA of a dispute 

over the completeness or accuracy of information in her file, 

the CRA must notify the furnisher of the information about 

the dispute, and the furnisher must take several measures in 

response. 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(2), s-2(b). The furnisher must 

investigate, report the investigation’s results to the CRA, and 

take certain steps if the investigation finds the information incomplete or inaccurate. Id. § 1681s-2(b). 

The district court did not err in dismissing Freeman’s 

FCRA claim. Freeman alleged in her amended complaint that 

Ocwen incorrectly reported to various CRAs that her loan 

was delinquent. She also alleged that Ocwen violated the 

FCRA by failing to conduct a reasonable investigation upon

receiving notice from “one or more consumer reporting agencies” that she disputed Ocwen’s reporting of her loan as delinquent. This second allegation implies that Freeman notified 

“one or more” CRAs of her dispute. But even if this allegation 
No. 23-2512 5 

were sufficient to allege that Freeman notified CRA(s) of her 

dispute, she failed to allege which CRA(s) she notified. Such 

barebones allegations cannot sustain her claim. 

Her failure to identify the CRA(s) she notified does not 

give Ocwen “fair notice of what the claim is and the grounds 

upon which it rests.” Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 93 (2007) 

(cleaned up). “The notice [of a dispute] required in order to 

trigger the furnisher’s duties under the statute does not come 

from ‘any’ consumer reporting agency or ‘an’ agency, but, rather, must come from ‘the’ ... consumer reporting agency that 

received notice of a dispute from any consumer.” SimmsParris 

v. Countrywide Fin. Corp., 652 F.3d 355, 359 (3d Cir. 2011)

(cleaned up). The FCRA requires that Ocwen, in response to 

a particular CRA’s notification of a dispute, investigate and 

report the results to that CRA. 15 U.S.C. § 1681s-2(b). Ocwen 

cannot effectively respond to a claim that it failed to comply 

with these obligations if it does not know which CRA’s dispute notification it needed to respond to with an investigation. Thus, to survive a motion to dismiss, Freeman needed to 

allege which CRA(s) she notified, but she failed to do so.

At argument, Freeman’s counsel stated that she notified 

Equifax and that Equifax, in turn, notified Ocwen of the dispute. In doing so, counsel referenced a particular exhibit. 

However, this exhibit does not save Freeman’s FCRA claim

from its pleading deficiencies: she first provided the exhibit at 

summary judgment, after the court dismissed the FCRA 

claim. Freeman also points to an exhibit attached to her complaint—a letter from Ocwen’s counsel that she says included 

copies of the disputes transmitted by the CRAs to Ocwen. But 

the exhibit only contains a short letter from Ocwen’s counsel, 

not copies of the disputes or any reference to a specific CRA. 
6 No. 23-2512 

Further, Freeman argues that our unpublished decision in 

Lang v. TCF National Bank, 249 F. App’x 464 (7th Cir. 2007),

supports her claim, but Lang is inapposite. Lang alleged that 

he notified a CRA that he disputed the accuracy of the credit 

information in his file. Id. at 465. We explained that he did not 

also need to allege that the CRA notified the furnisher of the 

information because “[t]he FCRA does not require a CRA to 

tell a consumer when it notifies a furnisher of information about 

the consumer’s dispute.” Id. at 466 (emphasis in original). “As 

a result a consumer may not, at the time of filing a complaint, 

be in a position to allege that notification.” Id. Crucially, Lang 

named the specific CRA that he notified in his amended complaint. By contrast, Freeman only vaguely alleged that “one 

or more” CRAs knew of her dispute. A plaintiff must allege

that she notified a CRA and identify the CRA she notified. Because Freeman failed to identify the CRA(s) she notified in her 

complaint, the district court did not err in dismissing Freeman’s FCRA claim.

B 

Freeman argues that the district court abused its discretion 

in denying her leave to amend to cure deficiencies in her 

FCRA claim. “We review a district court’s denial of leave to 

amend for abuse of discretion and reverse only if no reasonable person could agree with that decision.” Huon v. Denton, 

841 F.3d 733, 745 (7th Cir. 2016) (quotation omitted). Further, 

when a plaintiff moves for leave to amend after the deadline 

for amendment has passed, the court may apply “the heightened good-cause standard of [Federal Rule of Civil Procedure] 16(b)(4),” Adams v. City of Indianapolis, 742 F.3d 720, 733–

34 (7th Cir. 2014) (quotation omitted), before considering 
No. 23-2512 7 

whether “justice so requires” leave to amend under Rule

15(a)(2). 

The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying 

Freeman leave to amend her complaint for a third time. The

court noted that it had already given her two opportunities to 

amend her complaint. And it explained that it denied her 

third request to amend because the deadline for amendment 

had passed, and she did not meet Rule 16(b)(4)’s good cause 

standard. Freeman insists that when she made the two prior 

amendments, she did not have reason to believe the FCRA 

claim was deficient. She observes that the deadline for 

amendment expired months before Ocwen filed its motion to 

dismiss. But that a plaintiff “had no reason to know that his 

complaint was deficient until the defendant[] filed [its] motions to dismiss” does not establish good cause, as “a party 

should always ask itself whether the complaint it wants to file 

sets out a viable claim.” Alioto v. Town of Lisbon, 651 F.3d 715, 

720 (7th Cir. 2011). The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Freeman leave to amend.

III

We now turn to Freeman’s FDCPA claim. To bring a claim 

in federal court, a plaintiff must have Article III standing. 

TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413, 422–23 (2021). That 

is, a plaintiff must show that she suffered a concrete injury in 

fact that was likely caused by the defendant and redressable

by judicial relief. Id. at 423. “[T]raditional tangible harms,” including physical and monetary harms, “readily qualify as 

concrete injuries.” Id. at 425. An intangible harm may be concrete if it has “a close relationship to [a] harm[] traditionally 

recognized as providing a basis for lawsuits in American 

courts.” Id. In other words, an intangible injury may be 
8 No. 23-2512 

concrete if it has a close historical or common law analogue. 

Id. at 424. The allegations in the complaint must set out her 

theory of injury, though they need not identify the precise 

common law analogue for the injury. See Pucillo v. Nat’l Credit 

Sys., Inc., 66 F.4th 634, 640 (7th Cir. 2023). Then, at summary 

judgment, she must “supply evidence of specific facts that, 

taken as true, show each element of standing,” and “we must 

look to evidence in the record to evaluate whether [the plaintiff] has suffered an injury in fact.” Wadsworth v. Kross, Lieberman & Stone, Inc., 12 F.4th 665, 667 (7th Cir. 2021) (cleaned up). 

Freeman asserts that she suffered concrete injuries in fact 

that support standing: a tangible injury—monetary harm—

and intangible injuries. She identifies several common law analogues for her intangible injuries: defamation, false light, invasion of privacy, intrusion upon seclusion, and abuse of process. But on this record, none of these harms suffices for 

standing, so the district court properly dismissed her FDCPA 

claim. 

A 

As to monetary harm, Freeman asserts that she suffered 

the concrete injury of incurring legal fees to defend against 

the second foreclosure. Seeking legal advice in response to a 

communication concerning a disputed debt does not amount 

to an injury in fact. Pierre v. Midland Credit Mgmt., Inc., 29 F.4th 

934, 939 (7th Cir. 2022). Similarly, hiring a lawyer to resolve 

confusion about the proper course of action is also insufficient 

to confer standing. Brunett v. Convergent Outsourcing, Inc., 982 

F.3d 1067, 1069 (7th Cir. 2020). 

But even if hiring an attorney and litigating the second 

foreclosure action is an injury sufficient for standing, see 
No. 23-2512 9 

Choice v. Kohn Law Firm, S.C., 77 F.4th 636, 639 (7th Cir. 2023), 

Freeman’s argument fails as a matter of proof. The court excluded all evidence that could show she was monetarily 

harmed. Freeman concedes that the court excluded a document itemizing the attorney’s fees she incurred in the foreclosure action. It excluded that document because it found that 

during discovery, Freeman never disclosed the precise fee 

amount indicated on the document but rather disclosed a 

lower fee amount. Ocwen was consequently prejudiced because it could not conduct any discovery related to the document. 

Freeman contends that the exclusion does not extend to 

her declaration statement concerning the same fee amount indicated on the itemized document. But she made the declaration statement after discovery, presenting the same prejudice 

problem as did the excluded itemized document. And she

cited the declaration statement in her response in opposition 

to Ocwen’s motion for summary judgment, yet the court concluded at summary judgment that it excluded all evidence 

that she was concretely injured by incurring attorney’s fees. 

The court thus excluded the declaration statement, and Freeman cannot show monetary harm to support standing for her

FDCPA claim.

B 

Freeman’s common law analogues for the intangible injuries she suffered are also unavailing. First, she argues that she 

suffered reputational harm akin to defamation. She states that 

Ocwen’s dissemination of inaccurate credit reporting damaged her credit, may have caused her to be denied credit, and 

discouraged her from seeking credit opportunities out of fear 

of embarrassment. Freeman says that the Supreme Court’s
10 No. 23-2512 

decision in TransUnion, 594 U.S. 413, and our decision in 

Ewing v. Med-1 Solutions, LLC, 24 F.4th 1146 (7th Cir. 2022), 

support her analogy to defamation. In TransUnion, class members were listed in their credit reports as a “potential match” 

to a name on a list of terrorists, drug traffickers, and other 

criminals. 594 U.S. at 419–20. TransUnion disseminated these 

credit reports to third parties; this publication of the misleading credit reports to the third parties caused the class members to suffer an injury closely related to the reputational 

harm associated with defamation, making the injury sufficiently concrete for standing. Id. at 432–33. 

But in Ewing, we made clear that to establish the publication element of a defamation analogue, “the third party must 

understand the defamatory nature of the communication.” 24 

F.4th at 1154. In that case, we concluded that the third party 

understood the defamatory nature of the communication 

(debt collectors’ reports) because the third party included the 

debts in the plaintiffs’ credit reports, and its assessment of the 

plaintiffs’ creditworthiness considered whether a debt was 

disputed. Id. By contrast, Freeman provides no evidence that 

a third party understood the defamatory significance of 

Ocwen’s communication. The record indicates that Quicken 

Loans and Chase Card requested her credit report from 

TransUnion and that those reports contained Ocwen’s inaccurate reporting. The record also contains Freeman’s declaration statement that OneMain denied her a loan and her husband’s statement that her credit “is messed up because of this 

whole situation.” R. 336-25 at 15:2–3. But none of this evidence 

amounts to specific facts establishing that Ocwen disseminated the inaccurate reporting to a third party, such as

TransUnion, who understood the defamatory significance of 

the inaccurate reporting. It instead merely shows that 
No. 23-2512 11 

TransUnion included Ocwen’s inaccurate reporting in its own 

credit reports, indicating nothing about TransUnion’s or another third party’s assessment of her creditworthiness. Further, her statement that OneMain, a fourth party, denied her 

a loan is not enough. Nor is her husband’s vague statement 

about damage to her credit, referencing no particular third 

party. This defamation analogue therefore fails.

Freeman’s other defamation analogue and her false light 

analogue fail, too. She argues that Ocwen’s foreclosure filings, 

which falsely communicated to the public that she was in default on her loan, caused an injury closely related to defamation and false light, though her analysis analogizes only to 

false light. She alleged that Ocwen created an “adverse public 

record” and that for the rest of her life, she will have to “endure that Foreclosure record and engage in painful and embarrassing discussions and explanations as to why that record 

exists.” R. 59 at 32 ¶¶ 216–17. But we have made clear in our 

FDCPA case law that anxiety, embarrassment, and stress are 

not concrete injuries in fact. Wadsworth, 12 F.4th at 668. Further, an element of false light is that the tortfeasor “had 

knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of 

the publicized matter and the false light in which the other 

would be placed.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 625E(b) 

(1977). But Freeman does not assert that Ocwen had 

knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of 

the foreclosure action and the false light in which she would 

be placed. She therefore lacks standing for an FDCPA claim 

for embarrassment stemming from the foreclosure filings.

Next, Freeman argues that she has standing to pursue an 

FDCPA claim for Ocwen’s phone calls and “door knocks,” 

which she asserts caused an intangible injury closely related 
12 No. 23-2512 

to invasion of privacy or intrusion upon seclusion. But this 

injury is insufficient for standing. She says that Ocwen called 

her 12 times in a month and completed numerous door 

knocks, causing her to live in fear of losing her home. As Freeman notes, we stated in Gadelhak v. AT&T Services, Inc., 950 

F.3d 458 (7th Cir. 2020), a Telephone Consumer Protection Act 

case, that annoyance caused by unwanted text messages can 

be analogous to invasion of privacy, such as when the texts 

are sent “with such persistence and frequency as to amount 

to a course of hounding the plaintiff.” Id. at 462 (quotation 

omitted). But we subsequently stated in Wadsworth that “it is 

not enough for a plaintiff to be ‘annoyed’ or ‘intimidated’ by 

a[n] [FDCPA] violation.” 12 F.4th at 668. And “stress by itself 

with no physical manifestations and no qualified medical diagnosis [does not] amount to a concrete harm.” Pennell v. 

Global Tr. Mgmt., LLC, 990 F.3d 1041, 1045 (7th Cir. 2021). Freeman does not contest the district court’s exclusion of her medical records, nor does she argue on appeal that she suffered 

physical symptoms of her fear or received any related medical 

diagnosis. She is thus left without any admissible evidence 

supporting invasion of privacy or intrusion upon seclusion as 

an analogue for the fear she suffered, and her fear alone cannot carry her FDCPA claim. Pierre, 29 F.4th at 939 (“[W]orry, 

like confusion, is insufficient to confer standing in [the 

FDCPA] context.”). 

Finally, Freeman argues that she suffered psychological 

pressures from defending against the foreclosure and that this 

injury is akin to abuse of process. But she lacks standing to 

bring a claim for this injury for the same reason she lacks 

standing to bring a claim for fear: she points to no physical 

manifestation of the pressures or any related medical diagnosis, and psychological harm, standing alone, cannot amount 
No. 23-2512 13 

to an Article III injury in fact. Pennell, 990 F.3d at 1045. Because 

Freeman cannot establish under any of her theories that she 

suffered a concrete injury, the district court properly dismissed her FDCPA claim for lack of standing. 

AFFIRMED