NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_____________

No. 15-1056

_____________

DANIEL BOCK, JR.

v.

PRESSLER & PRESSLER, LLP, 

Appellant

_____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

District of New Jersey

(District Court No.: 2-11-cv-07593)

District Judge: Honorable Kevin McNulty

_____________________________________

Argued on November 10, 2015

Before: CHAGARES, RENDELL and BARRY, Circuit Judges.

(Opinion Filed: July 27, 2016)

Manuel H. Newburger, Esquire (Argued)

Barron & Newburger

1212 Guadalupe

Suite 104

Austin, TX 78701

Mitchell L. Williamson, Esquire

Pressler & Pressler, LLP

7 Entin Road

Parsippany, NJ 07054

Counsel for Appellant
2

Cary L. Flitter, Esquire (Argued)

Andrew M. Milz, Esquire

Flitter Milz

450 North Narberth Avenue

Suite 101

Narberth, PA 19072

Deepak Gupta, Esquire

Gupta Wessler

1735 20th Street, N. W. 

Washington, DC 20009

Philip D. Stern, Esquire

Andrew T. Thomasson, Esquire

Stern Thomasson

2816 Morris Avenue

Suite 30

Union, NJ 07083

Counsel for Appellee

Jeanne L. Zimmer, Esquire

Carlson & Messer

5959 West Century Boulevard

Suite 1214

Los Angeles, CA 90045

Counsel for Amicus-Appellants

Kristin Bateman, Esquire (Argued)

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

1700 G Street, N. W.

Washington, DE 20552

Counsel for Amicus-Appellee Consumer 

Financial Protection Bureau

Theodore P. Metzler, Jr., Esquire

Federal Trade Commission

600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W. 

Washington, DC 20580
3

Counsel for Amicus-Appellee

Federal Trade Commission

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O P I N I O N

____________

RENDELL, Circuit Judge:

Defendant-Appellant Pressler and Pressler, LLP appeals the District Court’s order 

granting Plaintiff Bock’s motion for summary judgment. Bock alleged that Pressler and 

Pressler made a false or misleading representation in violation of the Fair Debt Collection 

Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1692e, by filing a state complaint without 

meaningful attorney review. Although the issue of Article III standing was not raised by 

the District Court or by the parties, “we are required to raise issues of standing sua sponte 

if such issues exist.” Steele v. Blackman, 236 F.3d 130, 134 n.4 (3d Cir. 2001). At the 

time of oral argument in this case, Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016), was 

pending before the United States Supreme Court. It had the potential to impact cases like 

Bock’s, when the alleged injury to the plaintiff flows from the violation of a procedural 

right granted by statute. We asked the parties to address Spokeo at oral argument and 

requested written briefing after the opinion was published on May 16, 2016.

1

The issue of standing is “an essential and unchanging part of the case-orcontroversy requirement of Article III.” Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 

(1992). “The doctrine developed in our case law to ensure that federal courts do not 

 

1 The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331; we have 

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We exercise de novo review over an order 

granting summary judgment. Curley v. Klem, 298 F.3d 271, 276 (3d Cir. 2002). 
4

exceed their authority as it has been traditionally understood.” Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 

1547. Constitutional standing requires the party invoking jurisdiction to meet three 

elements:

First, the plaintiff must have suffered an “injury in fact”—an invasion of a 

legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) 

actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical[.] Second, there must be 

a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of . . . .

Third, it must be likely . . . that the injury will be redressed by a favorable 

decision.

Lujan, 504 U.S. 560–61 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). The issue 

presented in Spokeo was whether the violation of a procedural right granted by statute 

presents an injury sufficient to constitute an “injury-in-fact” and satisfy the “‘[f]irst and 

foremost’ of standing’s three elements.” Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1547.

While the Supreme Court did not change the rule for establishing standing in 

Spokeo, it used strong language indicating that a thorough discussion of concreteness is 

necessary in order for a court to determine whether there has been an injury-in-fact. Id. at 

1545. The Court made it clear that the requirements of particularization and concreteness

required separate analyses and that neither requirement alone was sufficient. Id. at 1548

(“Particularization is necessary to establish injury in fact, but it is not sufficient. An 

injury in fact must also be ‘concrete.’”). In determining whether there is a concrete 

injury, the presentation of an alleged statutory violation is not always sufficient. Id. at 

1549 (“[Plaintiff] could not, for example, allege a bare procedural violation, divorced 

from any concrete harm, and satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement of Article III.”). 

However, the Court confirmed that “because Congress is well positioned to identify 
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intangible harms that meet minimum Article III requirements . . . . [it] may elevat[e] to 

the status of legally cognizable injuries concrete, de facto injuries that were previously 

inadequate in law.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Essentially, “the question 

framed by [the Court’s] discussion [is] whether the particular procedural violations 

alleged in [a] case entail a degree of risk sufficient to meet the concreteness 

requirement.” Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1550. 

We recently discussed Spokeo’s impact on Article III standing in In re 

Nickelodeon Consumer Privacy Litig., No. 15-1441, 2016 WL 3513782 (3d Cir. June 27, 

2016). There, we interpreted Spokeo to say that “even certain kinds of ‘intangible’ harms 

can be ‘concrete’ for purposes of Article III . . . . What a plaintiff cannot do . . . is treat a 

‘bare procedural violation . . . [that] may result in no harm’ as an Article III injury-infact.” Id. at *7 (quoting Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1550). We observed that “in some cases an 

injury-in-fact may exist solely by virtue of statutes creating legal rights, the invasion of 

which creates standing.” Nickelodeon, 2016 WL 3513782 at *6. Specifically, we 

addressed the Supreme Court’s deference to Congress, noting that “Spokeo directs us to 

consider whether an alleged injury-in-fact ‘has traditionally been regarded as providing a 

basis for lawsuit,’” and “Congress’s judgment on such matters is . . . ‘instructive and 

important.’” Id. at *7 (quoting Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1549).

Given the Supreme Court’s directive in Spokeo regarding the need for a court to 

specifically address concreteness and particularization, we will remand this case to the 

District Court to determine in the first instance whether Bock has Article III standing.