Glick v. CMRE Financial Services, Inc.

Background

Tzipora Glick alleged that she incurred a medical bill that was later sold to CMRE Financial Services, Inc. for collection. CMRE used a third-party vendor to send Glick a letter dated June 16, 2021. According to the complaint, CMRE disclosed Glick’s personal information to that vendor, including the fact that she owed a medical debt.

Glick sued CMRE under Section 1692c(b) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a federal law governing debt-collection practices. That provision generally restricts a debt collector from communicating about a debt with someone other than specified people, without the consumer’s consent or another listed exception. CMRE removed the case from New York state court to the Southern District of New York and moved to dismiss the complaint. The United States was allowed to intervene after CMRE filed a constitutional challenge to Section 1692c(b), and the United States filed a memorandum supporting the statute’s constitutionality.

Standing and analysis

The court applied the standard for a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which asks whether the complaint alleges enough facts to state a plausible claim. The court also examined Glick’s Article III standing, meaning whether she alleged a concrete, personal injury fairly connected to CMRE’s conduct and likely to be addressed by a favorable ruling.

The court focused on whether the alleged disclosure caused a concrete injury. It discussed the Supreme Court’s decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, which recognized that some intangible harms may be concrete when they closely resemble harms traditionally recognized as grounds for lawsuits, including reputational harm, disclosure of private information, and intrusion upon seclusion. But the court explained that a statutory violation alone does not automatically establish a concrete injury.

The court compared Glick’s allegations to a prior related case involving information sent to an outside commercial mail house. In that case, the court reasoned that public disclosure of private facts generally requires communication to the public at large or to so many people that the information is substantially certain to become public knowledge. A disclosure to one person or a small group generally does not meet that standard.

Here, the court held that CMRE’s alleged disclosure of Glick’s medical debt to a third-party letter vendor did not amount to publicizing her private information. The complaint did not allege that anyone actually read the information or that it was provided to the public at large. The court therefore concluded that Glick had not alleged a concrete injury and lacked standing to bring the federal action.

Disposition

Judge Nelson S. Roman granted CMRE’s motion to dismiss. The court directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the motion at ECF No. 10 and terminate the action. The opinion does not state that the dismissal was with or without prejudice.