The entire Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reheard Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services and reversed the previous panel holding. The entire Eleventh Circuit now holds (8 to 4) that plaintiff Hunstein failed to allege a concrete harm that would provide Article III standing to pursue his claims in federal court. Previously, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit previously found Hunstein had standing to sue, which spawned thousands of
copycat cases across the country. See our ALERT dated Nov. 18, 2021.
This case does not address the underlying substantive question of whether the use of a third party letter vendor violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”), however. The case only addresses whether Hunstein has standing to sue in federal court. The majority opinion takes care to state that its holding is that Hunstein himself did not have standing to sue because there was no public disclosure of his private debt information. The district court proceedings did not go beyond a motion to dismiss so the factual record is limited and the court’s discussion is limited solely to the issue of standing based on the pleadings. Read More