PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

_____________

No . 18

- 2972

_____________

DONNA DINAPLES

, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated

v.

MRS BPO, LLC ; JOHN DOES 1

- 25

MRS BPO, LLC,

Appellant

____________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Pennsylvania

( D.C. No. 2

- 15

- cv

- 01435 )

Chief District Judge: Honorable Mark R. Hornak

Argued: J une 2 7 , 2019

Before: SMITH, Chief Judge

, and CHAGARES and

GREENAWAY, JR.

, C ircuit Judges

(Filed A ugus t 12, 2 019 )

Michael D. Alltmont [ARGUED]2 Bryan C. Shartle

Sessions Fishman Nathan & Israel

3850 North Causeway Boulevard

Lakeway Two, Suite 200

Metairie, LA 70002

Andrew J. Blady

Sessions Fishman Nathan & Israel

3682 Green Ridge Road

Furlong, PA 18925

Ross Enders

Law Offices of J. Scott Watson

24 Regency Plaza

Glen Mills, PA 19342

Counsel for Appellant MRS BPO, LLC

Ari H. Marcus

Yitzchak Zelman [ARGUED]

Marcus & Zelman

701 Cookman Avenue

Suite 300

Asbury Park, NJ 07712

Mark G. Moynihan

Suite 1

- N

112 Washington Place

Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Counsel for Appellee Donna DiNaples3 _____________

OPINION OF THE COURT

_____________

CHAGARES, Circuit Judge

.

Five years ago, in Douglass v. Convergent Outsourcing

, 765 F.3d 299 (3d Cir. 2014), we held that a debt collector

violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”)

, 15

U.S.C. §§ 1692

– 1692p, when it sent a collection letter in an

envelope displaying the debtor’s internal account number with

the collection agency. We are now asked to decide whether the

same is true when the envelope does not, on its face, show the

account number but does display an unencrypted “quick

response

, ” or “QR

, ” code that rev eals the number when

scanned. The District Court held that such conduct violates the

FDCPA

. We agree and will affirm.

I.

The facts underlying this appeal are undisputed.

Donna DiNaples had a credit card through Chase Bank

. Eventually, she fell behind on her payments, so Chase assigned

her account to a debt collection agency called MRS BPO

, LLC

(“MRS”)

. MRS sent DiNaples a collection letter as a pressure

sealed envelope that had a QR code printed on its face. QR

codes, including the one he re, can be scanned by a reader

downloadable as an app lication (better known as an “app”) on

a smartphone. And this QR code, when scanned with a QR

code reader, revealed the following sequence:4 “LU4.###1813.3683994.” 1 The string “LU4.###1813” was

the int ernal reference number associated with DiNaples ’ s

account at MRS.

DiNaples filed a class action lawsuit against MRS,

alleging that the collection agency

, by printing the QR code on

the envelope, had violated the FDCPA, which prohibits debt

collectors f

rom “[u]sing any language or symbol, other than the

debt collector’s address, on any envelope when

communicating with a consumer by use of the mails.” 15

U.S.C. § 1692f(8). Each side eventually filed a motion for

summary judgment.

The District Court granted DiNaples ’ s motion on

liability, concluding that MRS violated the FDCPA. The

District Court explained that this conclusion was required by

our decision in Douglass

, in which we held that a debt col lector

violates § 1692f(8) by placing on an envelope the consumer’s

account number with the debt collector. 765 F.3d at 303, 306.

For the District Court, there was no meaningful difference

between displaying the account number itself and displaying a

Q R code

— scannable “by any teenager with a smartphone

app”

— with the number embedded. DiNaples v. MRS BPO,

LLC

, No. 2:15

- cv

- 01435

- MAP, 2017 WL 5593471, at *2

(W.D. Pa. Nov. 21, 2017)

. The District Court further rejected

MRS’s contention that DiNaples ha d not “suffered a concrete

injury,” explaining that DiNaples was injured by “the

disclosure of confidential information.” Id. And the District

Court rejected MRS’s argument that it was protected by the

1 Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2(a)(4),

MRS and DiNaples omitted the first three digits of her account

number from their summary

- judgment filings.5 FDCPA’s “bona fide error defense.” Id. at *3. The District

Court also certified the proposed class.

T he parties thereafter stipulated that, to the extent that

there was liability, the damages would be $11,000. The

District Court granted judgment for DiNaples and the class for

that amount

, and t his t imely appeal followed.

II.

We consider first a jurisdictional issue

–– DiNaples ’s

standing to sue

. 2 The District Court, while it did determine that

DiNaples ha d suffered a concrete injury, never explicitly

addressed standing, seemingly assuming it wa s a non

- issue.

We, though, must assure ourselves of DiNaples ’s standing

. Anthony v. Council

, 316 F.3d 412, 416 (3d Cir. 2003).

Article III of the Constitution limits the federal courts to

adjudication of “Cases” and “Controversies.” U.S. Const. art.

III, § 2, cl. 1. “Courts enforce the case

- or

- controversy

requirement” by requiring the plaintiff to have standing to sue.

Toll Bros., Inc. v. Twp. o f Readington

, 555 F.3d 131, 137 (3d

Cir. 2009). Standing has three elements: “[t]he plaintiff must

have (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

one that is “concrete and particularized.” Id. at 1548 (quoting

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife

, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992)). To

2 As long as DiNaples has standing, the District Court

had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 13 31. We have appellate

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1 291

.6 be concrete, the injury “must actually exist.” Id. It must be

“real,” not “abstract.” Id.

The question here is whether DiNaples suffered a

concrete injury when her debt collector sent her a letter in an

envelope displaying a QR code that, when scanned, revealed

her account number with the debt collec tion agency. We

conclude that she did.

Because DiNaples ’s injury was intangible

, we begin our

analysis with the Supreme Court’s decision in Spokeo

. There,

the Court reaffirmed that, while tangible injuries are typically

easier to identify

, “ intangible injuries can nevertheless be

concrete.” 136 S. Ct. at 1549. The Court in Spokeo offered

guidance for determining the concreteness of an intangible

injury. The Court explained that “both history and the

judgment of Congress play important roles.” Id. A s to history,

courts should “ consider whether an alleged intangible harm has

a close relationship to a harm that has traditionally been

regarded as providing a basis for a lawsuit in English or

American courts.” Id. Congress’s “ judgment is also

instructi ve and important,” because Congress “is well

positioned to identify intangible harms that meet minimum

Article III requirements.” Id. Granted

, just because a plaintiff

assert s a c ongressionally created cause of action does not

necessarily mean that the plaintiff has suffered a concrete

injury. Id. A “bare procedural violation” will not meet the

concreteness requirement. Id. But “the violation of a

procedural right granted by st atute can be sufficient in some

circumstances to constitute injury in fact,” and “a plaintiff in

such a case need not allege any additional harm beyond the one

Congress has identified.” Id.7 We have already applied the principles set forth in

Spokeo to a similar situation. In St. Pierre v. Retrieval

- Masters

Creditors Bureau

, 898 F.3d 351 (3d Cir. 2018), we held that a

debtor suffered a concrete injury when a debt collector, in

violation of the FDCPA, sent him a collection letter in an

envelop e displaying his account number with the debt

collector. Id. at 355, 358. We explained that our earlier

decision in Douglass

–– though not a decision directly

addressing standing

–– resolved the matter. Id. at 357

– 58. In

Douglass

, we had held that displaying a consumer’s account

number on an envelope was not “benign,” explaining that such

conduct “implicates a core concern animating the FDCPA

—

the invasion of privacy. ” 765 F.3d at 303. That number, we

emphasized in Douglass

, was “a core piece of in formation”

relating to the debtor’s status as such, and, if “[d]isclosed to the

public, it could be used to expose her financial predicament.”

Id. Thus, in St. Pierre

, we concluded that the harm inflicted by

exposing the debtor’s account number was “a le gally

cognizable injury

. ” 898 F.3d at 358. We explained that,

because the harm involves the invasion of privacy, it “is closely

related to harm that has traditionally been regarded as

providing a basis for a lawsuit in English and American

courts.” Id. (citing Douglass

, 765 F.3d at 303, and Spokeo

, 136

S. Ct. at 1549). And therefore, per Spokeo

, the plaintiff in St.

P ierre had standing.

St. Pierre

, to be sure

, did not involve the precise

situation we have here

–– an account number displayed not on

the face of the envelope but embedded i n a QR code. And in

St. Pierre we explicitly declined to address that scenario. See

id. at 357 n.6 (“ [ W ] e need not reach the question whether

exposure of the ‘quick response’ code on the envelope, without

more, would be sufficient to confer standing under the FDCPA8 because exposure of one’s account number itself suffices.”).

We similarly declined to consider our QR

- code issu e in

Douglass

. See 765 F.3d at 301 n.4 (“Douglass no longer

presses her argument that Convergent violated the FDCPA by

including the QR Code on the envelope.

. . . We therefore do

not decide that issue.”).

Nonetheless, we conclude that the reasoning of those

two cases inevitably dictates that DiNaples has suffered a

concrete injury. Disclosure of the debtor’s account number

through a QR code, which anyone could easily scan and read,

still “implicates core p rivacy concerns.” Id. at 304. The debt

collector has “displayed core information relating to the debt

collection” that is “susceptible to privacy intrusions.” Id. at

305. Whether disclosed directly on the envelope or less

directly through a QR code, th e protected information has been

made accessible to the public. And as we concluded in St.

Pierre

, such an invasion of privacy “is closely related to harm

that has traditionally been regarded as providing a basis for a

lawsuit in English and American courts

. ” 898 F.3d at 35 7

– 5 8.

It thus follows from our Douglass and St. Pierre decisions that

DiNaples has suffered a sufficiently concrete harm.

MRS is incorrect to suggest that “to establish Article III

standing, [ DiNaples ] would have to show that someone actually intercepted her mail, scanned the barcode, read the

unlabeled string of numbers and determined the contents

related t o debt collection

–– or it was imminent someone might

do so.” MRS Br. 16 (emphases omitted ). The teaching of

Douglass and St. Pierre is that the disclosure of an account

number is itself the harm

–– it “ implicates core privacy

concerns

, ” Douglass

, 765 F.3d at 30 4

, and therefore is

sufficiently concrete under Spokeo to establish an injury

- in

-9 fact, St. Pierre

, 898 F.3d at 35 7

– 5 8. In other words, b ecause

the disclosure is the concrete harm here

, DiNaples “need not

allege any additional harm beyond the one Congress has

identified.” Spokeo

, 136 S. Ct. at 1549. Her evidence that she

received an envelope with a QR code containing private

information was enough to establish a concrete injury. 3

We hold that DiNaples has standing to sue.

I II

.

Satisfied that DiNaples has standing, we now consider

whether the District Court correctly determined that she had a

successful claim under the FDCPA. Our review is de novo

. See Tundo v. Cty. of Passaic

, 923 F.3d 283, 286 (3d Cir. 2019)

.

A.

The FDCPA

, specifically 15 U.S.C. § 1692f(8)

, prohibits debt collectors from:

[u]sing any language or symbol, other than the

debt collector’s address, on any envelope when

communicating with a consumer by use of the

mails or by telegram, except that a debt collector

3 For this reason, MRS’s attempt to distinguish St.

Pierre as involving a motion to dismiss, and hence a lower

evidentiary standard, falls flat. Though the motion here is for

summary judgment, D iNaples has offered sufficient evidence

of her concrete injury, namely the envelope ’s displaying a QR

code embedded with her account number.10 may use his business name if such name does not

indicate that he is in the debt collection business.

There is no dispute that that provision plainly prohibits the QR

code. Still, as other courts have observed, § 1692f(8 ) is rather

expansive when read li terally

. It would seemingly prohibit

including “a debtor’s address and an envelope’s pre

- printed

postage,” as well as “any innocuous mark related to the post,

such as ‘overnight mail’ and ‘forwarding and address

correction requested.’” Strand v. Diversif ied Collection Serv.,

Inc.

, 380 F.3d 316, 318 (8th Cir. 2004); see also Goswami v.

Am. Collections Enter., Inc.

, 377 F.3d 488, 493 (5th Cir. 2004).

To avoid these “bizarre results,” Strand

, 380 F.3d at 318, many

courts, as well as the Federal Trade Commis sion, have read a “benign language exception” into § 1692f(8), see Goswami

, 377 F.3d at 493

– 94. Although we have never adopted such an exception, MRS asks us to do so here and conclude that the QR

code falls within it.

But once again, we return to our d ecision in Douglass

. To repeat, Douglass involved an envelope displaying the

debtor’s account number with the debt collector. 765 F.3d at

300

– 01. There, as here, the debt collector urged us to read a

benign language exception into § 1692f(8), and like M RS, the

debt collector in Douglass argued that the account number

should fall within that exception. See id. at 301. We declined

to decide whether § 1692f(8) contains such an exception

because, regardless, the account number was not benign. Id. at

301, 303. That number, we explained, was “a core piece of

information

, ” the disclosure of wh ich “implicate [d] a core

concern animating the FDCPA

–– the invasion of privacy.” Id.

at 303

. We thus rejected the debt collector’s contention that

the “account nu mber is a meaningless string of numbers and11 letters, and its disclosure has not harmed and could not possibly

harm Douglass.” Id. at 305

– 06

.

As with standing, t he question is whether the analysis

changes when the account number is not on the face of the

envelope but is embedded in a QR code. The panel in Douglass

explicitly left that question open. See id. at 301 n.4. But,

k eeping in mind that “ the FDCPA must be broadly construed

in order to give full effect to [its remedial ] purposes ,” Caprio

v. H ealthcare Revenue Recovery Grp., LLC

, 709 F.3d 142, 148

(3d Cir. 2013), we agree with the District Court that the

reasoning of Douglass applies fully to an account number

embedded in a QR code

. As explained above with respect to

standing, the harm here is still the same

–– the unauthorized

disclosure of confidential information. And if such disclosure

was not benign, disclosure via an easily readable QR code is

not either

. Protected information has still been compromised.

MRS argues that Douglass is distinguishable. There,

the account information was on the face of the envelope,

capable of being seen by all. Here, by contrast, the envelope

facially displayed no connection to debt collection. It just

reveal ed a QR code, which is facially neutral and appears on

many commercial mailings. Any account information

, according to MRS, is hidden from public sight and could only

be seen by “unlawfully scanning ” the envelope. MRS Br. 24

n.3

. MRS suggests that “scanning the QR Code on an envelope

address ed to another is akin to opening a letter addressed to

another.” MRS Br. 23.

We are not persuaded. While we do not decide here

whether a benig n language exception to § 1692f(8) exists, it

would apply only to language truly benign relative to the12 purpose s of the FDCPA

. See Douglass

, 765 F.3d at 303 (“[W]e

cannot find language exempt from § 1692f( 8) if its disclosure

on an envelope would run counter to the very reasons Congress

enacted the FDCPA.”). If, as we held in Douglass

, disclosure

of a debtor’s account number is an invasion of privacy

, it

follows that disclosure of a QR code embedded with t hat

number is not benign. A QR code is still “susceptible to

privacy intrusions,” even if it does not facially display any

“core information relating to the debt collection

. ” 4 Id. at 305.

There is no material difference between disclos ing an account

num ber directly on the envelope and doing so via QR code

––

the harm is the same, especially given the ubiquity of

smartphones

. 5 Whether it is illegal to scan someone’s mail, as

MRS argues, is beside the point. The debt collector has still

exposed private information to the world in violation of the

FDCPA

. 6

4 We do not consider whether a debt collector violates §

1692f(8) by including on an envelope a QR code that does not

contain a consumer’s account number.

5 For this reason, it also does not matter where on the

envelope the QR code is printed , which MRS suggests makes

a difference. The account number has still been disclosed

, regardless of its location on the e nvelope.

6 And contrary to MRS’s contentions, there is a

difference between scanning a letter and opening it. The

former can be done surreptitiously without leaving any

evidence of tampering. Not so when a letter is physically

opened.13 We therefore hold that a debt collector violates §

1692f(8) when it sends to a debtor an envelope displaying an

une n crypted QR code that, when scanned, reveals the debtor’s

account number

. We thus agree with the District Court that

MRS, in doing so here, violated the FDCPA.

B.

MRS argues that, even if its conduct violated the

FDCPA, it is subject to the bona fide error defense. We

disagree

.

The FDCPA’s bona fide error defense is found in 15

U.S.C. § 1692k(c), which provides:

[ a ] debt collector may not be held liable in any

action brought under this subchapter if the debt

collector shows by a preponderance of evidence

that the violation was not intentional and resulted

from a bona fide er ror notwithstanding the

maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted

to avoid any such error.

In Jerman v. Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer & Ulrich L

. P

. A

. , 559 U.S. 573 (2010), the Supreme Court held “that the bona

fide error defense in § 1692k(c) does not apply to a violation

of the FDCPA resulting from a debt collector’s incorrect

interpretation of the requirements of that statute.” Id. at 604

–

05. Put d ifferently, “FDCPA violations forgivable under §

1692k(c) must result from ‘clerical or factual mistakes,’ not

mistakes of law.” Daubert v. NRA Grp., LLC

, 861 F.3d 382,

394 (3d Cir. 2017) (quoting Jerman

, 559 U.S. at 587).14 MRS contends that it committed a mistake of fact. It

argues that it “erred by using industry standards for processing

return mail and appreciating that no person has ever used a QR

Code to determine a letter concerned debt collection.” MRS

Br. 26. MRS insists that it “did not mistake nly interpret the

FDCPA.” MRS Br. 26. But that i s precisely what it did. While

MRS tries to characterize its error as one of fact, MRS

ultimately just misunderstood its obligations under the

FDCPA. Indeed, MRS all but admits that point when it argues

t hat it “mistakenly believed that its conduct could not

conceivably violate the FDCPA.” MRS Br. 31. That i s not a

mistake of fact; it i s a mistake of law. Had MRS’s printing of

the QR code been the result of a clerical mistake, accidentally

included cont rary to the agency’s normal procedures, then it

could conceivably avail itself of the bona fide error defense.

See Jerman

, 559 U.S. at 587. But that is not MRS’s argument;

indeed, MRS explains that using QR codes is “the industry

standard.” MRS Br. 34. MRS may not have intended “to

disclose that the contents of the envelope pertain to debt

collection ,” MRS Br. 27, but the bona fide error defense does

not protect every well

- intentioned act

, see Jerman

, 559 U.S. at

584

– 85. It applies only to clerical or factual mistakes

. See

Daubert

, 861 F.3d at 394. The bona fide error defense is

therefore inapplicable here.

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the judgment

of the District Court.