Seventh Circuit Dismisses Consumer's FACTA Case Pursuant to Spokeo -
The Seventh Circuit remanded a Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) case, Jeremy Meyers v. Nicolet Restaurant of De Pere, LLC, instructing the district court to dismiss the case due to lack of Article III standing. The consumer filed a putative class action against a restaurant alleging that it violated FACTA by failing to truncate plaintiff's credit card expiration date on a dinner receipt. Instead of ruling on the class certification issue, the Seventh Circuit instead held that plaintiff failed to establish jurisdiction as a threshold issue. Therefore, the Seventh Circuit remanded the case to the district court with instructions to dismiss it.
In its analysis, the Seventh Circuit concluded that the consumer never sufficiently alleged a concrete injury in the case pursuant to Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins. Therefore, the court held that both it and the district were without authority to consider the merits of action. The consumer argued that Congress, through the FACTA amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), had granted him a legal right to receive a receipt that truncates the expiration date on his credit card and that he was entitled to statutory damages. The Seventh Circuit, however, citing Spokeo, held that "Congress does not have the final word on whether a plaintiff has alleged a sufficient injury for the purposes of standing, because "not all inaccuracies cause harm or present any material risk of harm."
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