Patterson v. Howe

Plaintiff lacked standing to pursue instant action under Fair Debt Collection Practice Act (FDCPA), alleging that defendant’s practice of serving plaintiff with requests to admit facts in underlying state-court action seeking recovery of educational debt without warning plaintiff of ramifications for failing to serve timely responses violated FDCPA. In order to establish standing, plaintiff must establish concrete injury, and plaintiff in this regard stated that his standing was satisfied where: (1) he would have denied said requests if he had been apprised of time span in which to make said denials; and (2) resultant admissions caused him to lose leverage in settlement of debt collection lawsuit. Ct. of Appeals, though, found that neither theory of injury was sufficient to establish standing in this case, where: (1) plaintiff failed to show that he suffered any injury with respect to request to admit admissions, where record showed that defendant never indicated that he would use said admissions against him in debt collection lawsuit; and (2) standing must be established at time instant lawsuit was filed, and plaintiff’s leverage argument arose out of settlement of debt collection lawsuit, which did not occur until four months after filing of instant lawsuit.