Wood v. J Choo USA, Inc.

201 F. Supp. 3d 1332, 2016 WL 4249953, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106029
District Court, S.D. Florida·Decided August 11, 2016·No. Case No. 15-cv-81487-BLOOM/Valle·Published·Cited by 8 cases

Opinion

ORDER

BETH BLOOM, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

THIS CAUSE is before the Court upon Defendant J Choo USA, Inc.’s (“Defendant or “Jimmy Choo”) Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. [44] (the “Motion”), Plaintiff Kerri C. Wood’s (“Plaintiff’ or “Wood”) Complaint, ECF No. [1] (the “Complaint”), filed under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (“FACTA”), for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Court has carefully reviewed the Motion, the supporting and opposing submissions, the record, and the applicable law, and is otherwise fully advised in the premises. For the reasons set forth below, the Motion is denied.

I. Background

This controversy arises from a weekend shopping trip to the mall gone awry. On October 17, 2015, Wood purchased a pair of sunglasses at Jimmy Choo in Palm Beach Gardens. After her purchase, she was presented with a printed receipt containing certain personal credit card information that forms the subject of the instant class action lawsuit. Compl. ¶¶ 25-27; see ECF No. [44-3] (Wood’s redacted receipt). Wood alleges that Jimmy Choo willfully violated FACTA by issuing a sales receipt that displayed her credit card’s expiration date. See id. ¶ 61. The receipt also contained other sensitive information about Plaintiff, including her home address, telephone number, and the name of the salesperson that conducted the transaction; however, it displayed only the last four digits of her credit card number, as required by FACTA.1 See id. ¶ 27. Pursuant to these facts, Plaintiff alleges that she, as well as other fashion victims who conducted business with Defendant during the relevant timeframe, each of whom paid for goods using a credit or debit card and were provided with a receipt containing the card’s expiration date, suffered a violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(g). See id. ¶¶57-60. As a consequence, the Complaint claims that each class member has been uniformly burdened with an elevated risk of identity theft, and is entitled to an award of statutory damages accordingly.2 See id. ¶¶ 52, 62.

FACTA was enacted in 2003 as an amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. (“FCRA”), with the intended purpose of helping to combat identity theft. See Pub. L. No. 108-159, 117 Stat. 1952 (2003). FACTA, inter [1335] alia, prohibits merchants, like Jimmy Choo, that accept credit or debit cards from “print[ing] more than the last 5 digits of the card number or the expiration date upon any receipt provided to the cardholder at the point of the sale or transaction.” 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(g).3 The statute distinguishes between negligent noncompliance and willful4 violations. See id. A violation of FACTA’s receipt truncation requirements that is negligent, or non-willful, limits damages to reimbursement for actual injuries suffered by the consumer. See 15 U.S.C. § 1681o(a). In contrast, statutory and punitive damages are available to an aggrieved plaintiff who can establish a willful violation of FACTA. See 15 U.S.C. § 1681n(a) (“Any person who willfully fails to comply with any requirement imposed under this subchapter with respect to any consumer is liable to that consumer_”).

In the instant Motion, Jimmy Choo challenges whether Wood has Article III standing to bring this action for statutory damages, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, — U.S. -, 136 S.Ct. 1540, 1548, 194 L.Ed.2d 635 (2016). To the extent that Wood does not sufficiently allege a willful violation of FACTA, the Defendant submits that she is precluded from recovery under FACTA altogether, because she has failed to show an actual injury that is both particularized and concrete.

II. Legal Standard

One element of the case-or-controversy requirement under Article III of the United States Constitution is that plaintiffs “must establish that they have standing to sue.” Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 818, 117 S.Ct. 2312, 138 L.Ed.2d’ 849 (1997). “The law of Article III standing serves to prevent the judicial process from being used to usurp the powers of the political branches, and confines the federal courts to a properly judicial role.” Spokeo, 136 S.Ct. at 1547 (quoting Clapper v. Amnesty Inti USA, 568 U.S.-,-, 133 S.Ct. 1138, 1146, 185 L.Ed.2d 264 (2013)) (alteration adopted; citations omitted). “Standing for Article III purposes requires a plaintiff to provide evidence of an injury in fact, causation and redressibility.” Dermer v. Miamir-Dade Cnty., 599 F.3d 1217, 1220 (11th Cir.2010) (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61,112 S.Ct. 2130,119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992)). Specifically, “[t]o have standing, a plaintiff must show (1) he has suffered an injury in fact that is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to conduct of the defendant; and (3) it is likely, not just merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.” Kelly v. Harris, 331 F.3d 817, 819-20 (11th Cir.2003); see Bóch-ese v. Town of Ponce Inlet, 405 F.3d 964, 980 (11th Cir.2005) (same).

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Wood v. J Choo USA, Inc., 201 F. Supp. 3d 1332, 2016 WL 4249953, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106029 (S.D. Fla. 2016).

201 F. Supp. 3d 1332 (Wood v. J Choo USA, Inc.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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