In the

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

No. 23-1308 

GABRIEL BROWN and IVAN BROWN, 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

v.

CACH, LLC, 

Defendant-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. 

No. 20 C 4579 — Robert W. Gettleman, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED JANUARY 22, 2024 — DECIDED FEBRUARY 29, 2024 

____________________ 

Before EASTERBROOK, ST. EVE, and JACKSON-AKIWUMI, 

Circuit Judges. 

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. Bank of America sold to 

CACH a consumer debt account that was in arrears. The Bank 

declined to make any representations about the accuracy of 

the $5,246.21 balance that it had calculated. CACH attempted 

to collect the debt without announcing that the Bank had not 

verified the balance. 
2 No. 23-1308 

Gabriel Brown (the asserted debtor) and her brother Ivan 

Brown (who pretended to be Gabriel during one phone call) 

then sued CACH under 15 U.S.C. §1692e, part of the Fair Debt 

Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The Browns did not allege

that they had paid a penny to CACH, suffered a lower credit 

rating, or incurred any other concrete loss. Instead Gabriel 

filed an affidavit stating that she had “interrupted my selfemployment” to “mull over my memories” and “scour my

records” about the asserted debt. The case proceeded to summary judgment. But when the judge requested supplemental 

briefs with details, such as what Gabriel’s self-employment 

entailed and how any interruption led to a loss of income or 

other tangible detriment, she declined to provide additional

information. The judge then dismissed the complaint for lack 

of standing to sue. 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29299 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 

17, 2023). 

Injury is essential to standing, even when a statute entitles 

the plaintiff to collect damages without quantifying loss. See, 

e.g., TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190 (2022); Spokeo, 

Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016); Baysal v. Midvale Indemnity 

Co., 78 F.4th 976 (7th Cir. 2023). 

It is easy to see how debt-collection efforts could reduce a 

person’s self-employment income. Imagine a writer who tries 

to work from 8 am to noon every day, gets interrupted by a 

dunning phone call at 8:05, loses her train of thought (and 

thus a day’s work), and cannot finish the manuscript on the 

original schedule, which reduces or delays her royalties. (A 

delay in receiving income is a form of loss. See Dieffenbach v. 

Barnes & Noble, Inc., 887 F.3d 826, 828 (7th Cir. 2018).) But it 

isn’t enough to imagine how injury could occur; a plaintiff 

challenged to produce evidence of injury at the summary-
No. 23-1308 3 

judgment stage must do so. See, e.g., Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1991). 

Summary judgment is the “put up or shut up” time in litigation. Schacht v. Wisconsin Department of Corrections, 175 F.3d 

497, 504 (7th Cir. 1999). Gabriel was asked for details and refused to provide any. We do not know on this record that Gabriel ever has obtained income from her self-employment, let 

alone how CACH’s failure to say that the Bank had not warranted the accuracy of its calculation affected self-employment income. 

The Browns assert that decisions such as Billups v. I.C. System, Inc., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 153002 (N.D. Ill. August 25, 

2022), establish that the interruption of self-employment always shows injury in fact. None of these decisions comes from 

a court of appeals. To the extent the unqualified proposition 

has support in any judicial decision, it lacks support from the 

Supreme Court or the Seventh Circuit. To repeat: Interruption 

of self-employment could cause a loss, but whether it did cause 

a loss must be established by evidence. Plaintiffs, who declined an opportunity to produce such evidence, cannot carry 

on with this litigation. 

AFFIRMED