In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 09-4073

EDUARD SHLAHTICHMAN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

1-800 CONTACTS, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 09 C 4032—John W. Darrah, Judge.

ARGUED APRIL 15, 2010—DECIDED AUGUST 10, 2010

Before BAUER, ROVNER, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges. 

ROVNER, Circuit Judge. After Eduard Shlahtichman

purchased contact lenses over the Internet, 1-800 Contacts,

Inc. emailed him a confirmation of his order which reflected the expiration date of his credit card. The Fair

and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (“FACTA”)

prohibits a vendor who accepts a credit or debit card as

a means of payment from “print[ing] more than the last

5 digits of the card number or the expiration date upon
2 No. 09-4073

any receipt provided to the cardholder at the point of

the sale or transaction,” 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(g)(1); the prohibition “appl[ies] only to receipts that are electronically

printed,” as opposed to those on which the credit or debit

card information is written by hand or taken by imprint

or photocopy, § 1681(c)(g)(2). Did 1-800 Contacts “electronically print” the expiration date of Shlahtichman’s

credit card, and thereby violate FACTA, by including it

in the email? This is a question of first impression at the

appellate level. We answer that question in the negative

and affirm the dismissal of Shlahtichman’s complaint.

1-800 Contacts sells contact lenses over the Internet

and accepts payment by credit card. On or before June 2,

2009, Shlahtichman made an Internet purchase from 1-800

Contacts using his credit card. 1-800 Contacts then sent

Shlahtichman a computer-generated email confirming

his order. Among the information included in the confirmation was the expiration date of Shlahtichman’s credit

card. Shlahtichman received the email at his home in

Illinois on June 2, 2009. These are the essential factual

allegations of Shlahtichman’s complaint, and we assume

their truth for purposes of reviewing the dismissal of

his suit. E.g., Addis v. Whitburn, 153 F.3d 836, 837 (7th

Cir. 1998).

FACTA amended the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1970,

15 U.S.C. §§ 1681 et seq. (“FCRA”), to add, among other

provisions, a “receipt truncation” requirement aimed at

combating identity theft. See § 1681c(g). As amended, the

statute provides:
No. 09-4073 3

Truncation of credit card and debit card numbers

(1) In general

Except as otherwise provided in this subsection, no

person that accepts credit cards or debit cards for the

transaction of business shall print more than the last

5 digits of the card number or the expiration date

upon any receipt provided to the cardholder at the

point of the sale or transaction.

(2) Limitation

This subsection shall apply only to receipts that are

electronically printed, and shall not apply to transactions in which the sole means of recording a credit

card or debit card account number is by handwriting

or by an imprint or copy of the card.

(3) Effective date

This subsection shall become effective—

(A) 3 years after December 4, 2003, with respect to any

cash register or other machine or device that electronically prints receipts for credit card or debit card

transactions that is in use before January 1, 2005; and

(B) 1 year after December 4, 2003, with respect to

any cash register or other machine or device that

electronically prints receipts for credit card or debit

card transactions that is first put into use on or

after January 1, 2005.

§ 1681c(g). The statute permits a consumer to recover any

actual damages he sustains as a result of a negligent

violation, together with the costs of suit, see 15 U.S.C.
4 No. 09-4073

The Credit and Debit Card Receipt Clarification Act of 2007, 1

Pub. L. No. 110-241, 122 Stat. 1565 (enacted June 3, 2008),

provided a (partial) safe harbor to vendors who merely printed

the expiration date of a consumer’s credit or debit card on a

receipt prior to June 3, 2008, by declaring that this limited

violation of the statute would not amount to a willful violation

of the statute. See § 1681n(d). However, 1-800 Contacts

emailed the receipt to Shlahtichman after June 3, 2008, and so

the safe harbor is inapplicable to this case.

§ 1681o, or statutory damages (without any proof of

injury) of $100 to $1000 per violation, along with the

costs of suit, if the violation of the statute was willful, see

15 U.S.C. § 1681n(1)(A), (3).1

Shlahtichman filed a class action suit in Illinois state

court on behalf of himself and others similarly situated,

contending that 1-800 Contacts had violated the FCRA

as amended by FACTA by including the expiration date

of a purchaser’s credit card in the order confirmations

it sent by email. Because the suit arises under a federal

statute, 1-800 Contacts removed the action to the

district court. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1441, 1446. It then

moved to dismiss Shlahtichman’s complaint pursuant

to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure

to state a claim on which relief could be granted.

The district court granted the motion and dismissed

the suit. Shlahtichman v. 1-800 Contacts, Inc., No. 09 C 4032,

2009 WL 4506535 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 2, 2009); R.26, 28. The

court cited two principal reasons for concluding that an

emailed order confirmation falls outside the scope of
No. 09-4073 5

the statute. “First, e-mail order confirmations are not

‘electronically printed’ receipts under FACTA.” Id. at *2

(emphasis ours). Noting that the statute leaves the term

“printed” undefined, the court adopted the plain and

ordinary meaning of the term, which signifies the

transfer of text, images, designs, and other information

to paper. Id. at *3. It rejected Shlahtichman’s contention

that the term should also be taken to include the display

of information on a computer screen, reasoning that

even if the word “print” can be understood in this

way, this is not its ordinary import. Id. The fact that the

effective date of the truncating provision turned on the

date on which the vendor’s “cash register or other

machine or device that electronically prints receipts”

came into use confirmed that the provision should be

understood to reach receipts that are printed on paper

by cash registers and similar devices. Id. at *4. And

the legislative history revealed that it was the misappropriation of those kinds of receipts that Congress

was concerned about when it passed FACTA. Id. “Second,

an e-mail order confirmation is not provided ‘at the

point of the sale or transaction’ under FACTA.” Id. at *2

(emphasis ours). As other courts had observed, the statutory reference to receipts provided at “the point of the

sale or transaction” contemplates in-store transactions

rather than electronic commerce. Id. at *5. Even if a point

of sale can be ascribed to an Internet purchase—

Shlahtichman argued that the computer used by the

consumer to make the purchase represents the point of

sale—an email sent to the purchaser to confirm that

purchase is not provided at that point but rather is
6 No. 09-4073

directed to an email account that can be accessed anywhere. Id.

Although Shlahtichman brought this case as a class

action, no class was ever certified (no motion asking the

district court to do so was filed), so the dismissal of the

complaint only disposes of Shlahtichman’s individual

claim for relief. See, e.g., Phillips v. Ford Motor Co., 435

F.3d 785, 787 (7th Cir. 2006). Nonetheless, the district

court made clear that it contemplated no further proceedings in this case, see R. 26 (deeming the case closed),

so its judgment is final and our own appellate jurisdiction is secure. See, e.g., McClain v. Retail Food Employers

Joint Pension Plan, 413 F.3d 582, 585 n.2 (7th Cir. 2005).

Consistent with the fact that no class was certified, we

shall treat Shlahtichman’s complaint as if it were filed

solely on his own behalf. Rutan v. Republican Party of Ill.,

868 F.2d 943, 947 (7th Cir. 1989) (en banc), aff’d in part &

rev’d in part on other grounds, 497 U.S. 62, 110 S. Ct. 2729

(1990).

Our review of the district court’s decision is de novo.

E.g., Hukic v. Aurora Loan Servs., 588 F.3d 420, 434 (7th Cir.

2009). The viability of Shlahtichman’s complaint turns

on the meaning of FACTA’s terms—in particular, the

term “print.” Absent a definition supplied by the

statute itself, we look to the ordinary or natural meaning

of the term. FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 476, 114 S. Ct.

996, 1001 (1994) (citing Smith v. United States, 508 U.S.

223, 228, 113 S. Ct. 2050, 2054 (1993)); see also Hardt v.

Reliance Std. Life Ins. Co., 130 S. Ct. 2149, 2156 (2010). But

we must also look to the statute as a whole in discerning
No. 09-4073 7

a term’s meaning rather than examining it in isolation.

Samantar v. Yousuf, 130 S. Ct. 2278, 2289 (2010) (quoting

United States v. Morton, 467 U.S. 822, 828, 104 S. Ct. 2769,

2773 (1984)); Nken v. Holder, 129 S. Ct. 1749, 1756 (2009)

(quoting Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337, 341, 117

S. Ct. 843, 846 (1997)). “[W]hen the statute’s language is

plain, the sole function of the courts—at least where the

disposition required by the text is not absurd—is to

enforce it according to its terms.” Lamie v. U.S. Trustee,

540 U.S. 526, 534, 124 S. Ct. 1023, 1030 (2004) (quoting

Hartford Underwriters Ins. Co. v. Union Planters Bank, N.A.,

530 U.S. 1, 6, 120 S. Ct. 1942, 1947 (2000)).

As the district court noted, most courts have concluded that the term “electronically printed” reaches only

those receipts that are printed on paper, as that understanding of the statute conforms to the ordinary meaning

of the term “print.” See Turner v. Ticket Animal, LLC, No. 08-

61038-CIV, 2009 WL 1035241 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 16, 2009);

Smith v. Under Armour, Inc., 593 F. Supp. 2d 1281 (S.D. Fla.

2008); Smith v. Zazzle.com, Inc., 589 F. Supp. 2d 1345,

1348 (S.D. Fla. 2008); Grabein v. Jupiterimages Corp., No. 07-

22288-CIV, 2008 WL 2704451 (S.D. Fla. Jul. 7, 2008) (report

and recommendation of magistrate judge), adopted,

2008 WL 2906866 (S.D. Fla. Jul. 28, 2008); King v.

Movietickets.com, Inc., 555 F. Supp. 2d 1339, 1340 (S.D. Fla.

2008); Haslam v. Federated Dep’t Stores, Inc., No. 07-61871

CIV, 2008 WL 5574762 (S.D. Fla. May 16, 2008); Narson v.

GoDaddy.com, Inc., No. CV-08-0177, 2008 WL 2790211

(D. Ariz. May 5, 2008). A minority have concluded that

the term should be understood to reach electronic

receipts that are displayed on the consumer’s computer.
8 No. 09-4073

An Internet merchant, in addition to or in lieu of sending 2

the consumer a receipt or confirmation via email, may generate

a receipt on its website at the time of the transaction, which

the consumer may (and is often encouraged to) print out for

her records. See, e.g., Under Armour, 593 F. Supp. 2d at 1282.

We do not view as material the distinctions between a receipt

that is displayed on the merchant’s website and one that is

emailed to the consumer for purposes of the issue presented

in this case.

Romano v. Active Network, Inc., No. 09 C 1905, 2009 WL

2916838 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 3, 2009); Harris v. Best Buy Co., 254

F.R.D. 82, 86-87 (N.D. Ill. 2008); Grabein v. 1-800-

Flowers.com, Inc., No. 07-22235-CIV, 2008 WL 343179 (S.D.

Fla. Jan. 29, 2008); Vasquez-Torres v. Stubhub, Inc., No. CV

07-1328, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63719 (C.D. Cal. Jul. 2,

2007). We conclude that the majority view adopted by 2

the district court in this case is on firmer ground.

What FACTA covers are printed receipts. The same

technological advances that have given consumers

multiple means of paying their bills and purchasing

goods and services have also made it possible for the

receipts confirming those transactions to be provided in

the form of a voicemail, email, and text message as well

as the traditional paper receipt. But when one refers to

a printed receipt, what springs to mind is a tangible

document. To “print” a receipt thus ordinarily connotes

recording it on paper. “That is why [the plaintiff] had

to print a copy of his receipt to get it off of his computer; it is why the machine used to transfer text from a

computer to paper is called a printer; and it is why a
No. 09-4073 9

judge who asks a law clerk to print a case does not intend

for the clerk to merely display the case on his computer

screen.” Jupiterimages, 2008 WL 2704451, at *8 (emphasis

in original).

Dictionaries are a helpful resource in ascertaining the

common meaning of terms that a statute leaves undefined,

see, e.g., Crawford v. Metro. Gov’t of Nashville & Davidson

County, Tenn., 129 S. Ct. 846, 850 (2009), and a canvass of

several leading dictionaries reveals that “print” in its

transitive verb form ordinarily connotes the transfer of

words or images to a tangible medium—often paper.

See OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY ONLINE, available at

http://english.oxforddictionaries.com (last visited Aug. 5,

2010) (“produce (books, newspapers, magazines, etc.),

especially in large quantities, by a mechanical process

involving the transfer of text, images, or designs to paper:

a thousand copies of the book were printed”); MERRIAMWEBSTER DICTIONARY ONLINE, available at http://merriamwebster.com/dictionary (last visited Aug. 5, 2010) (“a: to

impress something in or on b: to stamp (as a mark) in

or on something”); DICTIONARY.COM, available at

http://dictionary.reference.com (last visited Aug. 5, 2010)

(“to produce (a text, picture, etc.) by applying inked types,

plates, blocks, or the like, to paper or other material either

by direct pressure or indirectly by offsetting an image

onto an intermediate roller”) (citing Random House

Dictionary). True enough, these sources recognize that

the term, when used with reference to computers, also

can be understood to mean the display of text on a computer’s viewing screen. MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY

ONLINE (“PRINT OUT; also: to display on a surface (as a
10 No. 09-4073

computer screen) for viewing”); DICTIONARY.COM (“Computers. to produce (data) in legible alphanumeric or

graphic form”). For that matter, one can also “print to

file” and “print to PDF” (portable document format) in a

computer environment without transferring anything to

paper. See OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY ONLINE (“send

(a computer file) to a printer or to another, temporary

file”). But these usages of the term, while more frequent

in recent years, do not yet represent the ordinary or

natural meaning of “print.” Shlahtichman suggests that

use of the adverb “electronically” in section 1681c(g)(2)

(“[t]his subsection shall apply only to receipts that are

electronically printed . . .”) (emphasis ours) evinces a congressional intent to broaden the meaning of the statutory

term to include the more modern usages, so that an

“electronically printed” receipt will include one that is

opened and displayed on the consumer’s computer. Yet,

the modifier “electronically” appears intended to distinguish those receipts that are printed by machine, as

opposed to those which are handwritten or created by

taking an impression of the card using an imprinter. See

Active Network, 2009 WL 2916838, at *3. In any case, whatever sort of printing that the consumer might do on his

or her computer is not printing done by a “person that

accepts credit cards or debit cards for the transaction of

business,” § 1681c(g)(1); and it is printing by the vendor,

rather than by the consumer, at which the statute is

aimed. Movietickets.com, 555 F. Supp. 2d at 1341-42;

GoDaddy.com, 2008 WL 2790211, at *3. An email generated

by the vendor might never be viewed or displayed by the

consumer and thus might never be printed even in the
No. 09-4073 11

expansive sense that Shlahtichman advocates. This leaves

Shlahtichman to argue that the vendor “prints” a receipt

simply by sending the email to the consumer. Shlahtichman

Reply at 17-18. But that too is a departure from the ordinary or natural meaning of the term.

Ultimately, “[s]tatutory language only has meaning in

context,” Graham County Soil & Water Conservation Dist. v.

United States ex rel. Wilson, 545 U.S. 409, 415, 125 S. Ct. 2444,

2449 (2005), and the overall statutory context of FACTA

suggests, consistent with the ordinary meaning of the

word “print,” that the statute is aimed at paper receipts. The statute’s ban on printing more than the last

five digits of a debit or credit card or the expiration date

of the card applies to receipts that are printed and “provided to the cardholder at the point of the sale or transaction.” § 1681c(g)(1) (emphasis ours). This language has a

ready application to face-to-face transactions that take

place in a “bricks-and-mortar” store or some comparable

physical location at which the consumer is handed a

receipt. See GoDaddy.com, 2008 WL 2790211, at *5. Its application to Internet purchases raises a host of questions.

Where is the point of sale for such a purchase—the consumer’s computer? the vendor’s headquarters? the vendor’s server? cyberspace generally? And is that the same

point at which an emailed receipt is provided to the

consumer? Assuming that these questions can be answered

in a way that comports with the statutory language, see

Ehrheart v. Bose Corp., Civ. A. No. 07-350, 2008 WL 64491,

at *4-*6 (W.D. Pa. Jan. 4, 2008) (on premise that “point

of sale or transaction” has no fixed meaning and can

refer to a time or event rather than a location, court es-
12 No. 09-4073

chews an understanding of the term as used in FACTA

that would refer to a particular physical site), a separate

subsection of section 1681c(g) points again to traditional, in-store transactions. In subsection 168c(g)(3),

Congress specified two different effective dates for the

truncation requirement: December 4, 2006, “with respect

to any cash register or other machine or device that electronically prints receipts for credit card or debit card transactions that is in use before January 1, 2005,” and December 4,

2004 with respect to any such machine or device “that is

first put into use on or after January 1, 2005.” (Emphasis

ours.) The citation of the cash register as the lead

example of a machine or device used to electronically

print a receipt is consistent with the notion that Congress

meant to regulate the types of receipts that document inperson transactions between the consumer and the merchant; few terms bring to mind a store better than

“cash register.” On the other hand, scores of businesses

use the same sorts of computers to generate and print

receipts that consumers now possess in their homes, and

technological advances are fast blurring the line between

traditional cash registers and consumer-owned devices

that can perform the same functions. See, e.g., Erick

Schonfeld, Square Turns Your iPad Into A Cash Register, TECH

CRUNCH (Apr. 3, 2010), available at http://techcrunch.com/

2010/04/03/square-ipad/ (last visited Aug. 5, 2010). More

telling, perhaps, is that Congress chose to make the

effective date of the truncation requirement dependent

on the vintage of the device used to print the receipt.

See GoDaddy.com, 2008 WL 2790211, at *5; Federated Dep’t

Stores, 2008 WL 5574762, at *4. If the statute applies to
No. 09-4073 13

only those receipts that are printed on paper by a vendor

using a cash register or similar device, then the two

different effective dates comprised a workable scheme.

If, however, the statute reaches not only those receipts

that are printed by the vendor in the traditional way,

but also those that are emailed to the consumer and

displayed on the device of her choosing (personal computer, smartphone, etc.), then with respect to the latter

subset of receipts, Congress made the effective date of

the truncation requirement dependent on a fact (the

date the device was first put into use) that was wholly

beyond the contemplation and control of the vendor

facing liability. Of course, that is water under the bridge

now that the later effective date has passed, but it is

implausible to think that Congress would have premised

a vendor’s liability on circumstances that were entirely

beyond its control. In short, “[t]he language of § 1681c(g)

as a whole clearly shows that the statute contemplates

transactions where receipts are physically printed using

electronic point of sale devices like electronic cash

registers or dial-up terminals.” GoDaddy.com, 2008 WL

2790211, at *6; see also Ticket Animal, 2009 WL 1035241, at *3

(“the terms ‘point of the sale’ and ‘any cash register or

other machine or device’ immediately evoke the image

of a paper receipt”); Under Armour, 593 F. Supp. 2d at

1287 (same); Zazzle.com, 589 F. Supp. 2d at 1348 (same).

The statutory language strikes us as significant not

only for the terms that it uses but for those it does not.

E-commerce was common by 2003; retail sales via the

Internet reached $56 billion in the United States that

year. U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, E-Stats: E-Commerce 2003
14 No. 09-4073

Highlights, at 4 (May 11, 2005), available at http://www.

census.gov/econ/estats/2003/2003finaltext.pdf (last visited Aug. 5, 2010). Yet the statute makes no use of

terms like “Internet” or “email” that would signal an

intent to reach paperless receipts transmitted to the

consumer via email. Elsewhere, Congress has made

explicit that it is including electronic media and transactions within the scope of a statute. See, e.g., 15 U.S.C.

§ 1278(c)(1)(A) (Consumer Product Safety Improvement

Act of 2008) (“Any advertisement by a retailer, manufacturer, importer, distributor, or private labeler (including

advertisements on Internet websites or in catalogues or

other printed materials) that provides a direct means

for the purchase or order of a product for which a cautionary statement is required under subsection (a) or (b)

shall include the appropriate cautionary statement displayed on or immediately adjacent to that advertisement . . . .”) (emphasis ours); 15 U.S.C. §§ 7701, et seq.

(Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography

and Marketing Act of 2003) (recognizing that “[e]lectronic

mail has become an extremely popular and important

means of communication, relied on by millions of Americans on a daily basis for personal and commercial purposes” and “offer[s] unique opportunities for the development and growth of frictionless commerce,”

§ 7701(a)(1), and proceeding to set forth series of requirements aimed at unsolicited commercial electronic mail

or “spam”); 18 U.S.C. § 2343(e)(1) (Contraband Cigarette

Trafficking Act of 1978, as amended by 2006 renewal

of Patriot Act) (defining “delivery sale” of cigarettes or

smokeless tobacco, as to which certain information must
No. 09-4073 15

be maintained as required by U.S. Attorney General, to

include sale in which “the consumer submits the order

for such sale by means of a telephone or other method

of voice transmission, the mails, or the Internet or other

online service, or by any other means where the consumer

is not in the same physical location as the seller when

the purchase or offer of sale is made”) (emphasis ours);

28 U.S.C. § 1920(2) (Judicial Administration and Technical

Amendments Act of 2008) (including within taxable

costs of litigation “[f]ees for printed or electronically

recorded transcripts necessarily obtained for use in the

case”) (emphasis ours); 42 U.S.C. § 2000aa-7 (Privacy

Protection Act of 1980) (defining “documentary materials” gathered in course of federal investigation, as to

which statute sets forth certain privacy protections, to

include “materials upon which information is recorded,

and includes, but is not limited to, written or printed

materials, photographs, motion picture films, negatives,

video tapes, audio tapes, and other mechanically,

mag[ne]tically, or electronically recorded cards, tapes, or

discs . . .”) (emphasis ours). In view of such statutory

provisions, it is reasonable to expect that Congress would

have used similar terminology had it meant to reach

electronic receipts viewed or printed by the consumer.

Under Armour, 593 F. Supp. 2d at 1287.

We recognize that section 1681c(g) was one of several

provisions in FACTA that were enacted to combat

identity theft. See Pub. L. 108-159, 117 Stat. 1952 (Dec. 4,

2003) (describing FACTA as “[a]n [a]ct [t]o amend the

Fair Credit Reporting Act, to prevent identity theft,

improve resolution of consumer disputes, improve the
16 No. 09-4073

We need not explore FACTA’s legislative history in view of 3

the unambiguous terms of the statute. E.g., Boyle v. United

States, 129 S. Ct. 2237, 2246-47 (2009). We do, however, note

(continued...)

accuracy of consumer records, make improvements in

the use of, and consumer access to, credit information,

and for other purposes”) (emphasis ours). Applying

FACTA’s truncation requirements to electronic as well

as printed receipts would no doubt be consistent with

that purpose, Active Network, 2009 WL 2916838, at *2;

Best Buy, 254 F.R.D. at 87; 1-800-Flowers, 2008 WL 343179,

at *3; StubHub, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63719, at *8-*9,

although as we note below, there are other statutes that

address the integrity of electronic communications. But

we may not ignore the unambiguous language of the

statute in order to further Congress’s expressed purpose

in enacting the statute. Morrison v. Nat’l Australia Bank

Ltd., 130 S. Ct. 2869, 2886 (2010) (“It is our function to

give the statute the effect its language suggests, however

modest that may be; not to extend it to admirable purposes it might be used to achieve.”); see also, e.g., Carr v.

United States, 130 S. Ct. 2229, 2241 (2010) (citing Mertens

v. Hewitt Assocs., 508 U.S. 248, 261, 113 S. Ct. 2063,

2071(1993)). Both the language and context of the truncation requirement make plain that Congress was regulating only those receipts physically printed by the

vendor at the point of the sale or transaction; to apply

the statute to receipts that are emailed to the consumer

would broaden the statute’s reach beyond the words

that Congress actually used.3
No. 09-4073 17

(...continued) 3

that neither party in this case nor any court addressing the

reach of section 1681c(g)(1) has cited any legislative history

that conflicts with our understanding of the statute.

Our construction of the statute does not produce

absurd results. Although electronic receipts may also be

misappropriated by identity thieves, one might reasonably believe that paper receipts pose unique, if not

greater, dangers in that regard. A paper receipt produced

at the point of sale or transaction may be dropped, mislaid,

or discarded by the consumer in any number of public

places where it easily can be retrieved and put to nefarious

use by others. An electronic receipt, by contrast, to the

extent it is viewed on the consumer’s own computer or

other digital device at a time and place of his choosing

(including his home or office), is arguably less subject

to inadvertent disclosure and theft. Under Armour, 593

F. Supp. 2d at 1288. To be sure, there may be someone

looking over the consumer’s shoulder when he views

an email in a public place, and emails and other

electronic data can be accessed without authorization

(“hacked”) at both the consumer’s and the vendor’s end

of things. See, e.g., Active Network, 2009 WL 2916838, at

*2. But Congress might have thought that the misappropriation of electronic data was better addressed by

other statutory provisions that specifically deal with the

privacy and misuse of such data. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C.

§ 1028(c)(3)(A) (Identity Theft and Deterrence Act of

1998, as amended by Internet False Identification Prevention At of 2000) (criminalizing the knowing production,

transfer, possession, use, or sale of stolen or forged iden-
18 No. 09-4073

tification documents in or affecting interstate or foreign

commerce, “including the transfer of a document by

electronic means”); 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(4) (Computer

Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986) (criminalizing the unauthorized access of a computer owned by government or

financial institution, or which is used in interstate or

foreign commerce, with intent to defraud); 18 U.S.C.

§ 2511(1)(a) (Electronic Communications Privacy Act of

1986) (criminalizing unauthorized interception of electronic communications); 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701, 2707 (Stored

Communications Act, enacted as part of Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986) (authorizing suit for

damages by victim of unauthorized, intentional access

to communications held in electronic storage).

Shlahtichman makes a belated argument that construing

the truncation provision not to apply to email receipts

is inconsistent with the FCRA’s preemption provision,

15 U.S.C. § 1681t(b). That provision forecloses regulation

by the States of any conduct regulated by the individual

provisions of the statute, including the truncation provision. See § 1681t(b)(5)(A). Shlahtichman reasons that

if email receipts are not covered by the federal statute,

then States will be free to impose their own truncation

requirements on email receipts, producing the very crazy

quilt of State laws that FCRA’s preemption provision

was meant to avoid. But Shlahtichman forfeited this

argument by failing to make it in the district court, e.g.,

Ocean Atlantic Dev. Corp. v. Aurora Christian Schools, Inc.,

322 F.3d 983, 1005 (7th Cir. 2003), and this is not one of

the rare civil cases in which we might overlook the forfeiture, see Russian Media Group, LLC v. Cable Am., Inc.,

598 F.3d 302, 308 (7th Cir. 2010).
No. 09-4073 19

We note finally that even if we have construed the

statute too narrowly, dismissal of Shlahtichman’s complaint was nevertheless appropriate because 1-800 Contacts did not willfully violate the statute. Shlahtichman

has alleged no actual injury, see § 1681o(a)(1), and has

instead sought the statutory damages that are authorized

for willful violations of the truncation requirement, see

§ 1681n(a)(1)(A). Like this court, 1-800 Contacts has

construed the truncation requirement not to apply to

email receipts. To date, there has been no contrary

opinion from a court of appeals or federal agency suggesting that the company’s understanding of the statute

is wrong; and even if its construction of the statute

turns out to be mistaken, it is objectively reasonable

nonetheless for all of the reasons we have discussed.

Consequently, if 1-800 Contacts did violate the statute

by including the expiration date of Shlahtichman’s credit

card in the receipt it emailed to him, it did not do so

knowingly or recklessly. See Safeco Ins. Co. of Am. v. Burr,

551 U.S. 47, 69-70 & n.20, 127 S. Ct. 2201, 2215-16 & n.20

(2007); Levine v. World Fin. Network Nat’l Bank, 554 F.3d

1314, 1319 (11th Cir. 2009) (“Safeco makes clear that evidence of subjective bad faith cannot support ‘a willfulness finding . . . when the company’s reading of the

statute is objectively reasonable’ ”); Movietickets.com, 555

F. Supp. 2d at 1342-43.

For all of these reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s

judgment.

8-10-10