Over the objection of the plaintiff, a District Court judge in New Jersey has adopted a magistrate court judge’s recommendation and remanded a Hunstein class-action case to state court, ruling the plaintiff lacked standing to sue because he did suffer a concrete injury. Yes, hard as it is to believe, there are still Hunstein cases floating around out there.
The Background: Back in 2022, the plaintiff filed a class-action complaint, alleging the defendant violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by disclosing his private, personal, and financial information to a third-party when it sent his information to a vendor to prepare and mail debt collection letters. For those who might not know, these cases are called Hunstein cases after Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services, which made similar claims about the use of a third-party to print and mail collection letters. After the defendant’s motion to dismiss was initially denied, thousands of these kinds of lawsuits were filed all over the country. Hunstein was ultimately dismissed after it was ruled the plaintiff lacked standing to sue.
- The plaintiff then sought to have the proceedings stayed pending the outcome of another Hunstein case. In that case, the plaintiff was ultimately found to lack standing to sue. So the magistrate judge assigned to this case decided to go the same route.
- The magistrate judge ultimately recommended that the case should be remanded back to state court, a ruling that the plaintiff objected to. The plaintiff argued that the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit have concluded that the disclosure of private information is a concrete harm and that there were deficiencies in the magistrate judge’s ruling.
The Ruling: While the plaintiff may feel like the disclosure of his account number, the names of his creditors, the last four digits of the original creditor’s account number, the portal for account information and payment options, the charge-off date, the amount due, and Plaintiff’s full name and mailing address are all disclosures of private information that amount to an intangible harm sufficient to establish Article III standing, Judge Esther Salas of the District Court for the District of New Jersey disagreed.
- “… Plaintiff fails to assert any claims that indicate that his private information was disseminated beyond the permissible third-party vendor Defendant obtained,” Judge Salas wrote. “Because Plaintiff has failed to allege that Defendant communicated his personal information beyond Defendant’s vendor, Plaintiff has not suffered the kind of privacy harm traditionally associated with public disclosure.”
