Opinion ID: 4246971
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: congressional judgment

Text: In adopting the FCRA’s credit card expiration date requirement, Congress did not “elevat[e] to the status of BASSETT V. ABM PARKING SERVICES 11 legally cognizable injuries concrete, de facto injuries that were previously inadequate in law.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 578. We look to Congress because “Congress is well positioned to identify intangible harms that meet minimum Article III requirements.” Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1549. But Congress’s creation of a prohibition “does not mean that a plaintiff automatically satisfies the injury-in-fact requirement” just because “a statute grants [him] a statutory right and purports to authorize [him] to sue to vindicate that right.” Id. Bassett cannot, therefore, “allege a bare procedural violation, divorced from any concrete harm, and satisfy the injury-infact requirement of Article III.” Id. Spokeo laid to rest the notion that because the FCRA authorizes citizen suits and statutory damages, it must mean that allegations of a statutory violation meet the standing requirement. The statute does not eliminate this constitutional floor. As the Supreme Court emphasized, “Congress cannot erase Article III’s standing requirements by statutorily granting the right to sue to a plaintiff who would not otherwise have standing.” Id. at 1547–48 (quoting Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 820, n.3 (1997)). Spokeo rejected our conclusion that a FCRA plaintiff need only invoke a FCRA violation and seek statutory damages to allege a concrete injury. Id. at 1546, 1549. In doing so, the Court cast aside our prior dictum that “[a]llowing consumers to recover statutory damages furthers [the FCRA’s] purpose by deterring businesses from willfully making consumer financial data available, even where no actual harm results.” Bateman v. Am. Multi-Cinema, Inc., 623 F.3d 708, 718 (9th Cir. 2010) (emphasis added). Far from “elevating” expiration date violations, the Clarification Act suggests that alleged injuries like Bassett’s are not concrete. Bassett’s suit replicates those addressed in 12 BASSETT V. ABM PARKING SERVICES the statute: it “alleg[es] that the failure to remove the expiration date was a willful violation of the [FCRA] even where the account number was properly truncated,” and does not “contain[] an allegation of harm to any consumer’s identity.” 122 Stat. at 1565. Congress stressed that “proper truncation of the card number, by itself as required by the [FCRA], regardless of the inclusion of the expiration date, prevents a potential fraudster from perpetrating identity theft or credit card fraud.” Id. Distinguishing between “consumers suffering from any actual harm to their credit or identity” and those pursuing “abusive lawsuits,” Congress clarified that printing the expiration date on a receipt was not a willful violation of the FCRA during a temporary safeharbor period. Id. at 1566 (emphasis added). Of course, Congress did not eliminate the FCRA’s expiration date requirement in the Clarification Act. But both the Clarification Act’s finding that a disclosed expiration date by itself poses minimal risk and the law’s temporary elimination of liability for such violations counsel that Bassett did not allege a concrete injury. On balance, congressional judgment weighs against Bassett.