## Facts

- Spokeo, Inc. operated an online “people search engine” that compiled information from multiple sources and generated profiles marketed as “consumer reports,” including for employment-related uses.
- Thomas Robins alleged Spokeo published a profile about him containing multiple inaccuracies (e.g., age, marital status, education, employment, and wealth).
- Robins sued under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), alleging Spokeo failed to follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy, in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1681e(b).
- Robins sought statutory damages available for willful FCRA violations and alleged the inaccurate profile harmed his employment prospects and caused anxiety and stress.
- The district court dismissed for lack of Article III standing, finding no allegation of actual or imminent harm.
- The Ninth Circuit reversed, reasoning that violation of Robins’s statutory rights regarding his own information was sufficient injury in fact.
- The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether alleging a statutory violation without concrete harm satisfies Article III standing.

## Issues

1. Whether a plaintiff alleging an FCRA violation has Article III standing absent a concrete injury beyond the statutory violation.
2. Whether a “bare procedural violation,” divorced from any concrete harm, can constitute injury in fact.
3. Whether the Ninth Circuit properly applied the requirement that injury in fact be both concrete and particularized.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s judgment and remanded.
- The Court held the Ninth Circuit’s standing analysis was incomplete because it addressed particularization but did not independently evaluate concreteness.
- The Court declined to decide whether Robins’s alleged inaccuracies and asserted harms were sufficiently concrete, leaving that determination for further proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- Article III standing requires (1) injury in fact, (2) causation, and (3) redressability.
- Injury in fact must be both (a) particularized (affecting the plaintiff personally) and (b) concrete (real, not abstract), and must be actual or imminent.
- A plaintiff does not automatically establish injury in fact merely because a statute creates a right and authorizes suit for its violation.
- A bare procedural statutory violation, without concrete harm, does not satisfy Article III.
- Concrete injury may be intangible; courts assess concreteness by considering (a) historical analogues to traditionally recognized harms and (b) Congress’s judgment in identifying harms and risks.
- Some procedural violations can be concrete when they create a material risk of real harm to the interests the statute protects; other technical violations may cause no concrete harm.

## Conclusion

The Court required lower courts to separately analyze whether an alleged statutory violation caused a concrete injury (or at least a material risk of real harm), holding that particularization alone and the mere existence of a statutory cause of action do not satisfy Article III standing.


Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016)