In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ 

Nos. 18-3582 & 19-1557 

JENNIFER R. LARKIN

and DOREAN A. SANDRI, 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

v.

FINANCE SYSTEM OF GREEN BAY, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee. 

____________________ 

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

Nos. 18-C-496 & 18-C-1208 — William C. Griesbach, Judge. 

____________________ 

ARGUED MARCH 30, 2020 — DECIDED DECEMBER 14, 2020

____________________ 

Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and ROVNER,

Circuit Judges. 

SYKES, Chief Judge. These consolidated appeals involve

materially identical claims under the Fair Debt Collection 

Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692 et seq. Jennifer Larkin and 

Dorean Sandri received collection letters from Finance 

System of Green Bay, Inc., seeking payment of medical 
2 Nos. 18-3582 & 19-1557 

debts. Represented by the same law firm, Larkin and Sandri

filed separate class-action lawsuits claiming that the letters 

violated §§ 1692e and 1692f of the Act, which prohibit the 

use of false, deceptive, or misleading representations, or

otherwise unfair or unconscionable methods to collect a 

debt. The district court dismissed both complaints for failure 

to state a claim.

We affirm, but on different grounds. A threshold question concerns standing to sue. Larkin and Sandri accuse 

Finance System of violating §§ 1692e and 1692f, but they 

have not alleged any injury from the statutory violations. 

Under Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016), and 

Casillas v. Madison Avenue Associates, Inc., 926 F.3d 329 (7th 

Cir. 2019), both cases should have been dismissed for lack of 

standing.

I. Background

Jennifer Larkin incurred a debt to Green Bay Radiology 

SC, which hired Finance System to collect it. On March 28, 

2017, Finance System sent a standard dunning letter to 

Larkin. Along with information about the debt, the letter

stated: “You want to be worthy of the faith put in you by 

your creditor ... . We are interested in you preserving a good 

credit rating with the above creditor.” 

A year later Larkin sued Finance System alleging that 

these sentences are false, deceptive, or misleading in violation of § 1692e of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act 

(“FDCPA” or “the Act”). She also generally alleged that the 

statements amount to an unfair or unconscionable means of

collecting a debt in violation of § 1692f. Larkin proposed to 
Nos. 18-3582 & 19-1557 3 

represent a class of persons who received similar dunning 

letters from Finance System. 

Dorean Sandri also incurred a debt to Green Bay Radiology. In August and September 2017, Finance System sent her 

three collection letters much like the one Larkin received. 

The first was dated August 6 and said, “Your creditor is 

interested in you preserving a good credit rating with them.” 

The second, dated August 22, said, “You do not want to lose 

our confidence. You want to be worthy of the faith put in 

you by your creditor ... .” The third, sent on September 7, 

told Sandri that “[y]our creditor has placed your bill for 

collection. To avoid errors and to clear your credit record 

with the above creditor, send or bring your payment to our 

office, or pay online ... .” 

Represented by the same law firm as Larkin, Sandri filed 

a nearly identical class-action lawsuit claiming that these 

statements are false, deceptive, or misleading, or otherwise 

unfair or unconscionable, in violation of §§ 1692e and 1692f.

The cases were assigned to the same district judge but 

not consolidated. In Larkin’s case Finance System moved to 

dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of 

Civil Procedure, arguing that the complaint was both untimely and failed to state a claim. The judge ordered supplemental briefing on the question of Larkin’s standing to 

sue. Finance System responded that Larkin lacks standing, 

then moved to dismiss Sandri’s case as well based on lack of

standing and failure to state a claim. 

Addressing the dismissal motion in Larkin’s case first, 

the judge concluded that Larkin has standing and had timely 

filed suit. But he dismissed her complaint for failure to state 
4 Nos. 18-3582 & 19-1557 

a claim, holding as a matter of law that the statements we’ve 

quoted above do not violate §§ 1692e or 1692f. The judge 

reached the same conclusions in Sandri’s case and dismissed

her complaint for failure to state a claim. 

Larkin and Sandri appealed. We consolidated the cases 

because they present identical questions of law.

II. Discussion

We begin—and end—with a discussion of standing. 

Article III of the Constitution empowers the federal judiciary 

to decide “Cases” and “Controversies,” U.S. CONST. art. III, 

§ 2, a limitation long understood to confine the federal 

courts to concrete disputes presented in a form historically

recognized as appropriate for judicial resolution in the

Anglo-American legal tradition, DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. 

Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 341 (2006). The doctrine of standing 

enforces this Article III limitation. To invoke the jurisdiction 

of a federal court, a plaintiff must demonstrate that he has 

standing to sue, a requirement “rooted in the traditional 

understanding of a case or controversy.” Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 

1547. 

To establish standing, a plaintiff has the burden to establish that he 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 

ruling.” Id. At the pleading stage, the standing inquiry asks

whether the complaint “clearly ... allege[s] facts demonstrating each element” in the doctrinal test. Id. (quotation marks 

omitted).

Many disputes about standing turn on the “injury in 

fact” requirement, and these two cases fall within that 
Nos. 18-3582 & 19-1557 5 

category. “To establish injury in fact, a plaintiff must show 

that he or she suffered ‘an invasion of a legally protected 

interest’ that is ‘concrete and particularized’ and ‘actual or 

imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.’” Id. at 1548 

(quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 

(1992)). The key question here is whether Larkin and Sandri 

have alleged an injury that is “both concrete and particularized.” Id. 

Particularization is generally easy to understand. An injury is particularized if it “affect[s] the plaintiff in a personal 

and individual way.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560 n.1. The claimed 

injury cannot be a generalized grievance shared by all 

members of the public. DaimlerChrysler Corp., 547 U.S. at 

342–44. Rather, the plaintiff himself must have personally

suffered an actual injury or an imminent threat of injury. Id.; 

see also Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A., 140 S. Ct. 1615, 1619 (2020) 

(affirming a dismissal for lack of standing because the 

plaintiffs themselves had no stake in the lawsuit).

The concreteness requirement can be trickier. “A concrete 

injury must be de facto; that is, it must actually exist.” Spokeo, 

136 S. Ct. at 1548 (quotation marks omitted). Put slightly 

differently, a concrete injury is one that is “real, ... not

abstract.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). But “concrete” does 

not necessarily mean “tangible.” Both tangible and intangible harms can satisfy the concreteness requirement, although 

tangible injuries—e.g., physical harms and monetary losses—are “easier to recognize.” Id. at 1549.

Intangible harms raise more difficult injury-in-fact questions. In the context of suits seeking relief for statutory 

violations, “both history and the judgment of Congress play 

important roles” in the analysis. Id. Congress may identify
6 Nos. 18-3582 & 19-1557 

and elevate historically non-cognizable intangible harms to 

the status of cognizable injuries, and when it does so, “its 

judgment is ... instructive and important.” Id. But it’s not 

conclusive. To the contrary, as the Supreme Court emphasized in Spokeo, a congressional decision to create a cause of 

action “does not mean that a plaintiff automatically satisfies 

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. Because Congress 

cannot override the case-or-controversy requirement,

“Article III standing requires a concrete injury even in the 

context of a statutory violation.” Id. So, for example, when a 

plaintiff sues for “a bare procedural violation” of a statute

and has not alleged a concrete personal injury from the 

violation, he has not satisfied the injury-in-fact requirement 

of Article III. Id.

Two of our recent cases applied the teaching of Spokeo to 

lawsuits arising under the FDCPA. Casillas v. Madison Avenue Associates concerned an alleged violation of § 1692g, 

which requires debt collectors to provide consumers with 

written notice of certain statutory rights—notably, the right 

to dispute the debt and the right to demand that the debt 

collector verify the identity of the creditor. 926 F.3d at 332. 

The defendant debt collector in that case made the required 

statutory disclosures in its communications with Paula 

Casillas but failed to inform her that if she wished to exercise 

her right to dispute the debt or demand verification of the 

creditor’s identity, she had to do so “in writing” as 

§ 1692g(a)(4) requires. Id. 

Casillas sued the debt collector for violating § 1692g(a) 

based on the failure to include the required “in writing” 
Nos. 18-3582 & 19-1557 7 

notice. But she did not allege any injury other than “the 

receipt of an incomplete letter”—i.e., a letter that failed to 

tell her of the “in writing” requirement if she wished to

dispute the debt or seek verification of the creditor’s identity. Id. at 331–32. Casillas did not claim that this incomplete 

letter harmed her in any way. “She did not allege that she 

tried—or even planned to try—to dispute the debt or verify 

[the identity of] ... her creditor.” Id. at 332. In short, “her 

notice was missing some information that she did not suggest that she would ever have used.” Id. at 334. This meant 

that “[a]ny risk of harm was entirely counterfactual: she was 

not at any risk of losing her statutory rights because there 

was no prospect that she would have tried to exercise them.” 

Id. Applying Spokeo, we concluded that because Casillas 

alleged “a bare procedural violation” without any allegation 

of a concrete harm, she lacked standing to sue. Id. at 339. 

Lavallee v. Med-1 Solutions, 932 F.3d 1049 (7th Cir. 2019), 

also concerned an alleged violation of § 1692g, but the

standing inquiry yielded a different result. Unlike Casillas, 

which involved an “incomplete validation notice,” in Lavallee

the debt collector did not provide “any of the disclosures 

required by § 1692g(a).” Id. at 1053. And crucially, the plaintiff, Beth Lavallee, suffered an actual harm from the statutory violation: the debt collector had already sued her in state 

court to collect the debt. That collection action would have 

been frozen in its tracks if she had disputed the debt or 

demanded verification as provided in the FDCPA. Under 

these circumstances, we found it reasonable to infer that if 

the debt collector had complied with its FDCPA notice 

obligations, Lavallee “would have exercised her statutory 

rights [to dispute the debt and demand verification], thereby 
8 Nos. 18-3582 & 19-1557 

halting the collection litigation.” Id. That was enough to 

establish a concrete injury:

In light of Casillas, an FDCPA plaintiff should 

include an allegation of concrete harm in his 

complaint. A bare allegation that the defendant 

violated one of the Act’s procedural requirements typically won’t satisfy the injury-in-fact 

requirement. But in Lavallee’s circumstances, 

the complete deprivation of § 1692g(a) disclosures and the fact that she was sued without 

the benefit of mandatory § 1692g(a) disclosures 

lends concreteness to her injury. 

Id.

With Casillas and Lavallee in mind, we return to our cases. 

Casillas and Lavallee raised claims under § 1692g, which 

imposes procedural obligations on debt collectors to notify 

consumers of certain statutory rights when communicating

with them. Larkin and Sandri, on the other hand, raise 

claims under §§ 1692e and 1692f, which prohibit “false, 

deceptive, or misleading representations” and “unfair or 

unconscionable” practices in the collection of consumer 

debts. In other words, the plaintiffs here invoke the Act’s 

substantive provisions. Their attorney pointed to this 

procedural/substantive distinction at oral argument as a 

basis to distinguish Casillas. We’re not persuaded that the 

distinction makes Casillas inapplicable or alters the Article III 

calculus. An FDCPA plaintiff must allege a concrete injury 

regardless of whether the alleged statutory violation is 

characterized as procedural or substantive. Thole, 140 S. Ct. 

at 1621 (concluding that “the plaintiffs have failed to plausi-
Nos. 18-3582 & 19-1557 9 

bly allege a concrete injury” in a case raising a substantive 

ERISA violation).

Neither Larkin nor Sandri has done so here. As Casillas

explains, it’s not enough for an FDCPA plaintiff to simply 

allege a statutory violation; he must allege (and later establish) that the statutory violation harmed him “or ‘presented 

an appreciable risk of harm to the underlying concrete 

interest that Congress sought to protect.’” Casillas, 926 F.3d 

at 333 (quoting Groshek v. Time Warner Cable, Inc., 865 F.3d 

884, 887 (7th Cir. 2017)). Larkin and Sandri generally alleged 

in their complaints that certain statements in Finance System’s collection letters were false, deceptive, or misleading, 

or unfair and unconscionable, in violation of §§ 1692e and 

1692f. But neither complaint contains any allegation of 

harm—or even an appreciable risk of harm—from the 

claimed statutory violation.

Nothing in the plaintiffs’ appellate briefing filled the gap. 

Although the question of standing was litigated in the 

district court and raised again by Finance System in its brief 

on appeal, the plaintiffs’ reply brief relied exclusively on the 

assertion of a statutory violation and made no effort to 

articulate an injury of any kind, either tangible or intangible, 

from the violation.1 

1 The plaintiffs did not address standing at all in their opening brief. 

Moreover, in their reply brief, they primarily argued that Finance System 

“waived appellate review” of its standing challenge by failing to file a 

cross-appeal. That argument is frivolous. Article III standing is jurisdictional and cannot be waived. Freedom from Religion Found., Inc. v. 

Nicholson, 536 F.3d 730, 737 (7th Cir. 2008).
10 Nos. 18-3582 & 19-1557 

Not finding an allegation of injury in the complaints or 

briefing, we gave the plaintiffs’ attorney several opportunities at oral argument to identify a concrete injury that might 

support his clients’ standing to sue. He could not do so. He 

did not contend, for example, that Finance System’s communications caused the plaintiffs to pay debts they did not 

owe or created an appreciable risk that they might do so. He 

did not claim that his clients were confused or misled to 

their detriment by the statements in the dunning letters, or 

otherwise relied to their detriment on the contents of the 

letters. He did not suggest that it was reasonable to infer that 

Larkin and Sandri would have pursued a different course of 

action were it not for the statutory violations (as was the case

in Lavallee). He did raise the possibility that the statements in 

the dunning letters might interfere with the doctor-patient 

relationship because the creditor in question was a medical 

provider. That’s too abstract and conjectural to constitute an 

injury in fact. The radiology clinic already knew that Larkin 

and Sandri hadn’t paid their bills; that’s why the clinic hired 

a debt collector. There is no allegation that the collection 

letters deterred Larkin or Sandri from seeking medical care 

or that any provider would refuse to treat them.

In sum, the plaintiffs seek to invoke the power of the federal courts to litigate an alleged FDCPA violation that did 

not injure them in any concrete way, tangible or intangible. 

As explained in Spokeo and Casillas, that’s impermissible 

under Article III. The suits should have been dismissed for 

lack of standing. We therefore modify the judgments to 

reflect a jurisdictional dismissal. As modified, the judgments 

are 

AFFIRMED