Last week, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the Northern District of Georgia’s dismissal of a putative Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) case against Equifax and Transunion. In Pedro v. Equifax, Inc., plaintiff sought to represent a putative class of authorized users of delinquent credit cards who did not have payment obligations…
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion in Robins v. Spokeo, finding that plaintiff Thomas Robins has standing to continue his Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) suit against Spokeo, Inc. In its opinion, a unanimous panel of the Ninth Circuit articulated a two-part concreteness test to determine standing. The court…
Last week, the Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of two Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) class actions on Spokeo grounds. The cases, which were consolidated for appeal, were filed by the same plaintiff against two corporate defendants alleged to have provided credit-report disclosures that did not comply with the FCRA. …
Last week, the District of New Jersey issued a noteworthy opinion in a putative TCPA class action against TD Bank and Target. In Martinez v. TD Bank USA, N.A. et al., 2017 WL 2829601 (D.N.J. June 30, 2017), the court held the defendants were entitled to summary judgment because the…
Even a year after it issued its opinion in Spokeo v. Robins, the Supreme Court’s decision on Article III standing continues to be hotly contested. On June 6, 2017, the District of New Jersey cited Spokeo in dismissing an amended Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) case. The decision…
On May 10, 2017, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the Middle District of North Carolina’s refusal to compel arbitration under the terms of a payday loan agreement. In Dillon v. BMO Harris Bank, N.A., BMO Harris attempted to compel arbitration pursuant to an agreement that would have required the arbitrator to…
On March 30, 2017, Judge Karas of the Southern District of New York dismissed multiple claims in a putative nationwide class action challenging default servicing activities. In the case, Tardibuono-Quigley v. HSBC Mortgage Corp., the plaintiff sued her lender (HSBC) and mortgage servicer (PHH) to contest charges she claimed were wrongly…
Last month, the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a putative class action that challenged certain fees imposed for property inspections conducted after the named plaintiffs had defaulted on their mortgages. Demonstrating the value of the increased pleading requirements set by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9, the Ninth Circuit’s decision in…
Earlier this month, the Northern District of Illinois struck the class allegations in Cholly v. Uptain Group, Inc., a single-count TCPA case filed against a medical services provider and a debt collector based on allegedly autodialed calls the plaintiff received. The defendants had sought to dismiss the complaint on several…
Last week, the Central District of California granted summary judgment in a TCPA case involving a single prerecorded call from the plaintiff’s medical insurance company. In Smith v. Blue Shield of California, the plaintiff alleged that her medical insurance provider violated the TCPA by placing a prerecorded call to her…
On December 13, 2016, the Ninth Circuit heard oral argument in Robins v. Spokeo (No. 11-56843) on remand from the Supreme Court. We wrote extensively (here, here, and here) about Spokeo before and after the Supreme Court’s May 16, 2016 decision. As readers may recall, the Central District of California had…
On November 23, 2016, the Second Circuit issued its opinion in Strubel v. Comenity Bank, a putative Truth in Lending Act (TILA) class action with both standing and substantive TILA implications. In Strubel, the plaintiff challenged the disclosures Comenity provided in connection with a retail store credit card. The opinion summarizes the plaintiff’s…
On October 31, 2016, the Supreme Court of Georgia issued a lengthy opinion ruling against payday lenders in two cases consolidated on appeal. The two cases (Western Sky Financial, LLC v. State of Georgia, No. S16A1011 and State of Georgia v. Western Sky Financial, LLC, No. S16X1012) involved state regulation…
On October 13, 2016, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida denied class certification in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) suit. In Newhart v. Quicken Loans Inc., Case No. 9:15-cv-81250, the plaintiff alleged that he received a number of calls on his cell phone from…
On September 2, 2016, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of a civil RICO claim in Ray v. Spirit Airlines, Inc., a case that challenged Spirit Airlines’ reporting of fees to customers. The Eleventh Circuit’s affirmance focused on the plaintiffs’ failure to allege the hidden fees were the proximate cause of…
On August 3, 2016, Goodwin filed an amicus brief in the Washington Supreme Court on behalf of the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Consumer Mortgage Coalition. The case—Jordan v. Nationstar Mortgage LLC—involved a challenge to a servicer’s default-servicing practice of rekeying the lock on the front door of seemingly abandoned…
Last week, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia rejected a constitutional challenge to rules promulgated by the CFPB. In State National Bank of Big Spring v. Geithner, the plaintiffs (a small Texas bank and other interested parties) challenged the Bureau’s regulatory authority on separation-of-power and recess-appointment…
Today, the Supreme Court released its opinion in Spokeo v. Robins, vacating the Ninth Circuit’s decision and remanding the case for further proceedings. Our earlier posts on the case (here, here, and here) provide more detailed background on the facts of the case, but by way of short introduction, Spokeo…
The CFPB’s assault on payday lenders is nothing new (see our coverage of the Bureau’s proposed Payday lending rules here and Enforcement Watch’s coverage of a payday-lending-based consent order here), but the Bureau has now gone international. CFPB v. NDG Financial Capital (Case No. 15-cv-05211), currently pending in the Southern District of…
On March 22, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo. For those unfamiliar with the case, Tyson Foods is a Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) case that involved an alleged failure to pay overtime to employees who spent significant time “donning and doffing” (putting on…