Dacosta v. Associated Credit Services, Inc.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

CHRISTOPHER DACOSTA,

Plaintiff, MEMORANDUM & ORDER

v. 24-CV-4833 (HG) (LB)

ASSOCIATED CREDIT SERVICES, INC.,

Defendant.

HECTOR GONZALEZ, United States District Judge:

Pro se Plaintiff Christopher Dacosta filed the instant action against Defendant Associated

Credit Services, Inc. on July 11, 2024, alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices

Act (“FDCPA”). ECF No. 1 (Complaint). On August 5, 2024, the Court directed Plaintiff to

show cause, in writing, why his case should not be dismissed for failure to allege an injury-in-

fact sufficient to establish federal jurisdiction. ECF No. 6 (Order to Show Cause). On that

same date, the Court granted Plaintiff’s application to proceed in forma pauperis (“IFP”) under

28 U.S.C. § 1915 for the limited purpose of the Order to Show Cause. Id. Plaintiff responded

to the Order to Show Cause on August 23, 2024. ECF No. 7 (Response to Order to Show

Cause). For the reasons stated in the Order to Show Cause and explained below, this case is

dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

DISCUSSION

Unlike state courts, “federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction,” Owen Equip. &

Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U.S. 365, 374 (1978), and, under Article III, can only resolve

“[c]ases and [c]ontroversies” in which a plaintiff has a “personal stake.” TransUnion LLC v.

Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413, 423 (2021).1 A case or controversy exists only where a plaintiff has

suffered “an injury in fact that is concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent.” Id. Where

a plaintiff has not suffered such an injury-in-fact, that plaintiff lacks standing to sue, and the

federal courts lack jurisdiction to entertain that plaintiff’s claims. Id.; see also Spitz v. Caine &

Weiner Co., Inc., No. 23-cv-7853, 2024 WL 69089, at *2 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 5, 2024). As the

Supreme Court made clear in TransUnion, “an injury in law is not an injury in fact,” and “[o]nly

those plaintiffs who have been concretely harmed by a defendant’s statutory violation may sue

that private defendant over that violation in federal court.” 594 U.S. at 427 (emphasis in

original). Thus, “even where a defendant violates a statute such as the FDCPA, the plaintiff has

not necessarily suffered an injury-in-fact sufficient to establish Article III standing.” Spitz, 2024

WL 69089, at *2. An injury qualifies as “concrete” where it bears “a close relationship to a

harm traditionally recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit in American courts,” such as

“physical and monetary harms, along with other traditional tangible harms, [as well as] certain

intangible harms, such as reputational harm.” Maddox v. Bank of New York Mellon Tr. Co.,

N.A., 19 F.4th 58, 63 (2d Cir. 2021).

As the Court explained in the Order to Show Cause, Plaintiff’s Complaint failed to

adequately plead or proffer plausible facts that demonstrated that he had suffered an injury-in-

fact sufficient to establish Article III standing. Plaintiff’s response to the Court’s Order to Show

Cause does not fare any better. Plaintiff explains that he suffered from “anxiety, time wasted,

mental headaches and emotional distress,” because of the alleged error on his credit report. ECF

No. 7 at 1–2 . These claims are insufficient to establish standing in FDCPA cases. See, e.g.,

1 Unless noted, case law quotations in this Order accept all alterations and omit all internal

quotation marks, citations, and footnotes.

Maddox, 19 F.4th at 66 (plaintiff’s “perfunctory allegation of emotional distress” alone is

“insufficient to plausibly allege constitutional standing”); Brown v. Midland Credit Mgt., No. 24-

cv-1184, 2024 WL 1623336, at *3 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 15, 2024) (dismissing plaintiff’s claim for

lack of standing because she pled no facts to demonstrate that she suffered the sort of injury that

would entitle her to relief); Spitz, 2024 WL 69089, at *4 (“[F]ear, anxiety, stress, increased

heartrate, and difficulty with sleep [are not] injuries-in-fact, at least when they are asserted in the

conclusory manner of these complaints. The reason these allegations can be repeated across

cases in cookie-cutter complaints is that they don’t really mean anything and can rarely be

disproven.”). Similarly, Plaintiff’s claim in his response that he “wasted” his time, see ECF No.

7 at 2, is insufficient to establish standing absent a link to a concrete, tangible injury. See, e.g.,

Spitz, 2024 WL 69089, at *3; Grinblat v. Frontline Asset Strategies, LLC, No. 22-cv-4467, 2023

WL 5002474, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 4, 2023) (dismissing plaintiff’s claims because “the

expenditure of time alone is insufficient to establish standing unless it is inextricably linked to a

concrete, tangible injury, which [p]laintiff has not shown here”).

To the extent that Plaintiff seeks to argue that he “incurred consultation fees” in an effort

to resolve his dispute, see ECF No. 7 at 2, “hiring an attorney . . . does not support standing

because the burdens of bringing a lawsuit cannot be the sole basis for standing.” Cavazzini v.

MRS Associates, 574 F. Supp. 3d 134, 144 (E.D.N.Y. 2021). Accordingly, because the

allegations in Plaintiff's Complaint and his response to the Court’s Order to Show Cause do not

amount to a concrete injury sufficient to confer standing, the Court lacks jurisdiction over

Plaintiff’s FDCPA claims.

CONCLUSION

In light of the foregoing, and for the reasons outlined in the Order to Show Cause, see

ECF No. 6, Plaintiff’s Complaint, which was filed IFP, is dismissed without prejudice for lack of

subject matter jurisdiction. See Carter v. HealthPort Techs., LLC, 822 F.3d 47, 54 (2d Cir.

2016) (“[W]here a complaint is dismissed for lack of Article III standing, the dismissal must be

without prejudice, rather than with prejudice.”). The Court offers no opinion on whether

Plaintiff might be able to pursue his claims in state court, which, unlike this Court, is not a court

of limited subject matter jurisdiction.

The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed enter judgment, close the case, and to mail a

copy of this Order to the pro se Plaintiff.

The Court certifies pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from this order

would not be taken in good faith, and, therefore, in forma pauperis status is denied for purpose of

an appeal. See Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 444–45 (1962).

SO ORDERED.

/s/ Hector Gonzalez

HECTOR GONZALEZ

United States District Judge

Dated: August 28, 2024

Brooklyn, New York