Law360 quoted Manatt’s Christine Reilly, co-chair of the firm’s TCPA compliance and class action defense practice, in an article about two different interpretations of the Supreme Court’s May 2016 decision in Spokeo v. Robins in privacy suits in New York and California.
The Ninth Circuit on January 30 found in Van Patten v. Vertical Fitness Group that a former gym member who claimed to have received spam texts from the gym suffered a concrete injury beyond the alleged violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, while a judge in the Southern District of New York ruled that a plaintiff who claimed Paris Baguette America Inc. printed his credit card expiration date on sales receipts had no standing to pursue a case.
The Ninth Circuit's conclusion that a violation of the TCPA is a "concrete, de facto injury" sounds "nearly the same" as the Ninth Circuit's original—and now overruled—decision in Spokeo, which found that a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act on its own is sufficient to confer Article III standing, Reilly explained.
"The only real difference is that now the Ninth Circuit has 'dressed up' this argument by seizing on a loophole provided by the Supreme Court in excusing 'real injury,'" Reilly said, pointing to the high court's conclusion in Spokeo that "intangible harms" can satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement for standing.
Read the article here.