In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 19-3327 

ASHLEY NETTLES, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v.

MIDLAND FUNDING LLC, and

MIDLAND CREDIT MANAGEMENT, INC., 

Defendants-Appellants. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 18-cv-7766 — Edmond E. Chang, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED JUNE 4, 2020 — DECIDED DECEMBER 21, 2020 

____________________ 

Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK, Circuit 

Judge.1

1 The Honorable Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice of the Supreme 

Court of the United States, was a judge of this court and member of the 

panel when this case was submitted but did not participate in the 

decision and judgment. The appeal is resolved by a quorum of the panel 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 46(d).
2 No. 19-3327 

SYKES, Chief Judge. After Ashley Nettles defaulted on her 

credit-card account, Midland Funding LLC acquired the 

debt. Midland sued Nettles in state court, and the parties 

entered a consent judgment requiring a monthly repayment 

plan with modest automatic draws from her bank account. 

The automatic draws ceased after three months when 

Midland’s law firm went out of business. A Midland affiliate 

then sent Nettles a collection letter that overstated her 

remaining balance by about $100. That prompted this suit 

under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA” or 

“the Act”), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692 et seq. 

The complaint alleges that the letter is false, misleading, 

or otherwise unfair or unconscionable in violation of

15 U.S.C. §§ 1692e and 1692f. Nettles proposes to represent a 

class of consumers who received similar letters. The creditcard agreement, however, contains an arbitration provision

giving either party the right to require arbitration of any 

dispute relating to the account, including collection matters. 

Midland moved to compel arbitration. The district judge 

denied the motion, concluding that the arbitration clause

does not cover this claim. As permitted by the Federal 

Arbitration Act, Midland appealed, asking us to reverse and 

remand with instructions to grant the motion to compel

arbitration.

A jurisdictional defect prevents us from reaching the arbitration question. Nettles sued for violation of §§ 1692e and 

1692f, but she has not alleged any injury from the alleged 

statutory violations. Applying our recent decisions in Larkin 

v. Finance System of Green Bay, Inc., Nos. 18-3582 & 19-1537, 

2020 WL 7332483 (7th Cir. Dec. 14, 2020), and Casillas v. 

Madison Avenue Associates, Inc., 926 F.3d 329 (7th Cir. 2019), 
No. 19-3327 3 

we vacate and remand with instructions to dismiss the case 

for lack of standing.

I. Background

In 2015 Ashley Nettles applied for a credit card with 

Credit One Bank. The bank accepted her application and 

sent her a credit card and a copy of the cardholder agreement. The agreement explained that by using her card, she 

became bound by the terms of the cardholder agreement and 

that its terms were enforceable not only by Credit One but 

also its successors and assigns. The agreement contains a 

provision that either party may require arbitration of any 

dispute relating to the account, including collection matters. 

Nettles used the card after receiving it and thus became 

bound by the agreement. 

Nettles continued to use her credit card but stopped 

making payments in January 2016. In July 2016 Credit One 

charged off the $601.97 balance and sold its rights in her 

account to MHC Receivables, LLC, which later sold the debt

to Sherman Originator III LLC. Sherman Originator in turn 

sold the debt to Midland Funding LLC. 

Midland hired the law firm Blatt, Hasenmiller, Leibsker 

& Moore LLC, which sued Nettles in Michigan state court to 

collect the debt. The parties entered a consent judgment that 

required Nettles to pay Midland $689.37 (the $601.97 account 

balance plus Midland’s $87.40 in court costs) in monthly 

installments of $50 until paid in full. The Blatt law firm, 

acting on behalf of Midland, automatically withdrew the $50 

payments from Nettles’s bank account for three months but 

then stopped when the firm dissolved. At this point Nettles

owed Midland $539.37. 
4 No. 19-3327 

In June 2018 Midland Credit Management, Inc., a 

Midland affiliate, sent Nettles a letter stating that it would be 

servicing the debt on behalf of Midland Funding and that 

her current balance was $643.59, about $104 more than her

actual outstanding balance. Nettles responded with this 

lawsuit against Midland and its affiliate.2 (The appeal 

doesn’t require us to distinguish between the two, so we 

refer to them collectively as “Midland.”)

The complaint alleges that the collection letter was false, 

misleading, or otherwise unfair or unconscionable in violation of §§ 1692e and 1692f of the FDCPA. Nettles sought 

actual and statutory damages and proposed to represent a 

class of consumers who received similar letters overstating 

their account balances. Midland moved to compel arbitration, invoking the arbitration provision in the Credit One 

cardholder agreement. The judge denied the motion, concluding that the claim was beyond the scope of the arbitration provision. He reasoned that the dispute concerned a 

matter relating to the consent judgment entered in Michigan 

court—not Nettles’s Credit One account.

Midland appealed under the Federal Arbitration Act, 

which authorizes an immediate appeal from an order denying a motion to compel arbitration. 9 U.S.C. § 16(a)(1); see

Hennessy Indus. v. Nat’l Union Fire Ins. Co., 770 F.3d 676, 678 

(7th Cir. 2014). 

2 The complaint also named the Blatt law firm as a defendant, but Nettles 

voluntarily dismissed her claim against the firm.
No. 19-3327 5 

II. Discussion

Most of the briefing concerns the arbitration issue, but 

the parties also identify a possible problem with Nettles’s 

standing to sue. Their attention to the standing issue is 

belated; in the district court, no one addressed whether 

Nettles adequately pleaded an injury traceable to the alleged 

FDCPA violations. But Article III standing is jurisdictional 

and cannot be waived. FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 

215, 231 (1990); Freedom from Religion Found., Inc. v. Nicholson, 

536 F.3d 730, 737 (7th Cir. 2008). The standing inquiry resolves this appeal.

As the case comes to us, our analysis of Article III standing asks whether the complaint “clearly allege[s] facts” 

demonstrating that Nettles has “(1) suffered an injury in fact, 

(2) that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the 

defendant, and (3) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 

1547 (2016). An injury in fact is an “invasion of a legally 

protected interest that is concrete and particularized and 

actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Id. at 

1548 (quotation marks omitted). A concrete injury is a real 

injury—that is, one that actually exists, though intangible 

harms as well as tangible harms may qualify. Id. at 1548–49. 

Nettles alleges that Midland’s collection letter violated 

her rights under the FDCPA. But a plaintiff does not “automatically satisf[y] the injury-in-fact requirement whenever a 

statute grants a person a statutory right and purports to 

authorize that person to sue to vindicate that right.” Id. at 

1549. To the contrary, “Article III standing requires a concrete injury even in the context of a statutory violation.” Id.
6 No. 19-3327 

Our recent decisions in Casillas and Larkin applied these 

principles to claims alleging violations of the FDCPA. In 

Casillas the plaintiff alleged that the defendant debt collector 

violated her rights under § 1692g of the Act by sending her 

an incomplete collection letter omitting one part of the 

statutorily required notice about how to exercise her right to 

dispute her debt. Casillas, 926 F.3d at 332. We explained that 

the plaintiff lacked standing because she had not alleged that 

the incomplete notice harmed her or created any real risk of

concrete harm to her. Id. at 334. She did not claim, for example, that she tried to dispute the debt or even considered 

contacting the defendant to dispute or verify the debt. Id. So 

there was no risk that the defendant’s error could have 

caused her to lose § 1692g’s statutory protections because 

she did not ever consider using them. Id. at 336. 

In Larkin we extended the reasoning of Casillas to claims 

under §§ 1692e and 1692f of the FDCAP. 2020 WL 7332483, 

at *3–4. We acknowledged that § 1692g—the provision at 

issue in Casillas—imposes procedural obligations on debt 

collectors, while §§ 1692e and 1692f are substantive provisions prohibiting “false, deceptive, or misleading representations” and “unfair or unconscionable” debt-collection 

practices. Id. at *3. We held that the distinction between 

procedural and substantive statutes has no effect the standing analysis: “An FDCPA plaintiff must allege a concrete 

injury regardless of whether the alleged statutory violation 

is characterized as procedural or substantive.” Id. (citing 

Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A., 140 S. Ct. 1615, 1621 (2020)). The 

plaintiffs in Larkin alleged that certain statements in the 

defendant debt collector’s dunning letters were false, misleading, and unfair, but the complaints contained no allegations of harm or “even an appreciable risk of harm” from the 
No. 19-3327 7 

alleged statutory violations. Id. at *4. We concluded that the 

claims must be dismissed for lack of standing. Id. 

The same result is required here. Nettles alleges that 

Midland violated §§ 1692e and 1692f when it overstated the 

amount of her debt in its collection letter. But her complaint 

does not allege that the statutory violations harmed her in 

any way or created any appreciable risk of harm to her. 

Indeed, on appeal she admits that the letter didn’t affect her 

at all and that her only injury is receipt of a noncompliant 

collection letter. She invites us to reconsider Casillas under 

Circuit Rule 40(e). We decline the invitation.3 As something 

of an afterthought at oral argument, Nettles argued that 

becoming annoyed and consulting a lawyer suffice to establish injury for standing purposes. We rejected that argument 

in Gunn v. Thrasher, Buschmann & Voelkel, P.C., No. 19-3514, 

2020 WL 7350278, at *2 (7th Cir. Dec. 15, 2020). 

Larkin and Casillas are dispositive here. Because Nettles 

has not alleged that she suffered an injury from the claimed

FDCPA violations, she has failed to plead facts to support 

her standing to sue. We VACATE the order denying 

Midland’s motion to compel arbitration and REMAND with 

instructions to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.

3 Nettles relies in part on the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Macy v. GC 

Services Ltd. Partnership, 897 F.3d 747, 757 (6th Cir. 2018), which held that 

an alleged violation of § 1692g is itself enough to create standing. But in 

Casillas we explicitly rejected Macy as inconsistent with Spokeo, acknowledging that in doing so, we created a circuit split. Casillas v. Madison Ave. 

Assocs., Inc., 926 F.3d 329, 335–36 (7th Cir. 2019). And as required by 

Circuit Rule 40(e), Casillas was circulated to the full court. Id. at 336 n.4. 

Another Rule 40(e) circulation on the same issue would be pointless.