On November 3, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed a Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (“FACTA”) complaint in Fullwood v. Wolfgang’s Steakhouse because the plaintiff failed to allege an injury-in-fact.

The plaintiff—Cynthia F. Fullwood—alleged that on October 3, 2013, she dined at a restaurant owned and operated by one of the defendants. According to the plaintiff, she paid for her meal with her credit card and received a receipt that displayed the expiration date of her credit card.

The plaintiff filed a complaint against the defendants. She alleged that the receipt she received violated section 1681c(g)(1) of the FACTA, which prohibits printing a credit card number’s expiration date on a receipt. The defendants—for the fourth time—moved to dismiss the case. In the plaintiff’s third amended complaint, she added to her prior allegations the contention that she made other purchases with her credit cards at the defendants’ restaurants; received receipts with the expiration dates displayed; and discarded the receipts without destroying them. The defendants asked the court to dismiss the case because the plaintiff lacked Article III standing. Specifically, the defendants contended that the plaintiff had failed to include allegations that satisfied Article III standing’s injury-in-fact requirement.

The plaintiff did not allege that she had been the victim of identity theft or credit card fraud. Additionally, the plaintiff did not allege that she had suffered any monetary damages because of the allegedly non-compliant receipts. Instead, the plaintiff merely sought statutory damages. To satisfy Article III’s injury-in-fact requirement, the plaintiff contended that the existence of the non-compliant receipts increased her risk of becoming a victim of identity theft.

The court determined that the plaintiff’s third amended complaint—like her three prior complaints—failed to allege a harm that satisfied Article III’s injury-in-fact requirement. The court explained that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit—in Crupar-Weinmann v. Paris Baguette Am., Inc., 861 F.3d 76 (2d Cir. 2017)—had concluded that including an expiration date on a receipt does not increase the risk of identity theft. Without any other allegations concerning an injury-in-fact, the plaintiff was unable to satisfy that Article III standing requirement.

Lastly, this was the plaintiff’s fourth complaint. Because the plaintiff had failed to cure her complaint three times, the court denied her request to again amend her complaint.

A copy of the Fullwood v. Wolfgang’s Steakhouse decision is available here.