Source: https://consumerfinancialserviceslaw.us/11th-circuit-rules-on-article-iii-standing-in-facta-cases/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 22:13:54+00:00

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On October 3, 2018, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a significant decision in a class action case regarding a plaintiff’s standing to sue for alleged violations of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (“FACTA”). See Muransky v. Godiva Chocolatier, Inc., No. 16-16486, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 27980 (11th Cir. Oct. 3, 2018).
FACTA is a 2003 amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”). As described in Muranski, FACTA “‘is aimed at protecting consumers from identity theft.’”[i] Among other things, FACTA added to the FCRA a provision entitled “Truncation of credit card and debit card numbers.” See 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(g). This provision states as follows: “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.” See id.
In Muransky, the named plaintiff, Dr. David S. Muransky – suing on behalf of a putative class – alleged that Godiva Chocolatier, Inc. (“Godiva”) violated § 1681c(g) by giving him a receipt that showed the first six and last four digits of his credit card number. Dr. Muransky and Godiva subsequently reached a class settlement, and sought the District Court’s approval of the settlement. Certain putative class members objected to the proposed settlement, contending that Dr. Muransky lacked standing to sue because he had not suffered a concrete injury. The District Court approved the settlement, and the objectors appealed that decision to the 11th Circuit.
The 11th Circuit affirmed the District Court’s decision, focusing on the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S.Ct. 1540 (2016). In Spokeo, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant, a “people search engine,” violated the FCRA by providing inaccurate information about him in response to a search. The issue before the Supreme Court in Spokeo was whether the plaintiff had Article III standing to sue.
Second, the 11th Circuit found that Dr. Muransky’s complaint sufficiently pled a specific, concrete injury. As the 11th Circuit explained: “When merchants breach their truncation duty, customers like Dr. Muransky must use their time (and wallet space) to safely dispose of or keep the untruncated receipt so as to avoid someone finding their credit card number on their receipt.”[x] Thus, the 11th Circuit found that Dr. Muransky had Article III standing to sue.
The 11th Circuit recognized that, following Spokeo, certain other federal circuits had found that Article III standing was lacking in cases involving printed receipts that displayed the customer’s credit card expiration date but that otherwise properly truncated the customer’s credit card number.[xi] However, the 11th Circuit interpreted such decisions as standing only for the limited proposition that “Congress does not consider an untruncated expiration date alone to be harmful.”[xii] Therefore, such decisions were inapplicable to Dr. Muransky’s complaint.
[i] Muransky, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 27980, at *11.
[ii] Spokeo,136 S.Ct. at 1549.
[vii] Muransky, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 27980, at *13.
[xi] See, e.g., Bassett v. ABM Parking Servs., Inc., 883 F.3d 776 (9th Cir. 2018); Crupar-Weinmann v. Paris Baguette Am., Inc., 861 F.3d 76 (2d Cir. 2017); Meyers v. Nicolet Rest. of De Pere, LLC, 843 F.3d 724 (7th Cir. 2016).
[xii] Muransky, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 27980, at *20.
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