FCRA Class Action Review – 2025

plaintiff argued that this overdisclosure exposed her personal information to others who might have handled the receipt, which forced her to take protective action and heightening the risk of identity theft for her and other customers. The trial court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss. The plaintiff subsequently filed a motion for class certification, and the trial court granted the motion. The defendant appealed the decision, arguing that the plaintiff lacked standing to bring the FACTA claims in state court. On appeal, the Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the trial court’s ruling granting class certification. The Appellate Court held that to establish standing pursuant Illinois state law, a plaintiff may assert actual or threatened injuries, with their claims needing to be specific, traceable to the defendant's actions, and likely to be resolved by the requested relief. The Appellate Court found that the plaintiff met the standing criteria because she specifically claimed that the defendant violated her FACTA rights by overdisclosing her debit card information on the receipt, which was a distinct grievance, and not simply a generalized complaint affecting the public at large. The Appellate Court ruled that the plaintiff’s injury was sufficiently linked to the defendant since it issued the receipt, and the harm could likely be addressed by the damages available under FACTA. Accordingly, the Appellate Court affirmed the trial court’s ruling granting the plaintiff’s motion for class certification. VIII. Key FDCPA Rulings On Dispositive Motions, Including Standing-Related Arguments While the FCRA covers how financial matters, including debts, can be reported in consumer reports, the FDCPA is the federal law that limits what debt collectors can do when attempting to collect certain types of debt. Congress enacted the FDCPA in 1977 with the purpose of prohibiting debt collectors from using abusive, unfair, or deceptive practices to collect from consumers. This past year saw noteworthy class action litigation not only under the FCRA, but also under the FDCPA. These rulings can be grouped into two categories addressed in turn as follows: (i) rulings regarding threshold issues amenable to dismissal, including but not limited to standing; and (ii) rulings on class certification. The defendant in Barclift, et al. v. Keystone Credit Services, LLC, 93 F.4th 136 (3d Cir. 2024), a debt collector, engaged RevSpring, a third-party vendor, to print and mail debt collection notices to individuals, including the plaintiff. The plaintiff filed a class action alleging that the defendant shared her personal information with RevSpring without her consent in violation of the FDCPA. The district court dismissed the plaintiff’s allegations without prejudice, ruling that she lacked standing because her alleged injuries were not sufficiently concrete and thus, she failed to allege a concrete injury under Article III standing requirements. On appeal, the Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling. The Third Circuit determined that the plaintiff’s intangible harms must have a close relationship to alleged recognized harms for standing purposes. The Third Circuit concluded that the plaintiff failed to establish standing because she could not show a close relationship between the harm she alleged (disclosure of personal information to a mailing vendor) and harms traditionally recognized by disclosure of personal information, including humiliation or embarrassment due to the public disclosure of sensitive information. The Third Circuit opined that harm from internal disclosures such as that alleged by the plaintiff did not align with harms traditionally recognized in privacy torts that depend on public disclosure unless there would be a sufficient likelihood of external dissemination. Finally, the Third Circuit determined that the plaintiff’s allegation that she was subject to the future harm of RevSpring possibly accessing and disseminated her personal information was too speculative to establish standing under Article III. For these reasons, the Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling that granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss. In Salom, et al v. Nationstar Mortgage LLC, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 220582 (W.D. Wash. Dec. 5, 2024), the plaintiffs filed a class action against Nationstar Mortgage LLC and Freddie Mac alleged that the defendants illegally charged fees for payoff statements when homeowners requested them. Specifically, the plaintiffs challenged the $25 “junk fees” charged by Nationstar for providing written payoff quotes. Id. at *4. The plaintiffs asserted four main causes of action, including unjust enrichment against Nationstar, breach of contract against Freddie Mac, violation of the FDCPA, and violations of state debt collection and mortgage servicing laws. The breach of contract claim against Freddie Mac was based on the allegation that Freddie Mac, as the owner of the mortgage loan, allowed Nationstar, as the servicer, to charge illegal fees. The plaintiffs argued that Freddie Mac had the power to audit Nationstar and ratified its actions by failing to prevent them. Freddie Mac filed a motion to

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