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
- Whether a plaintiff alleging an FCRA violation has Article III standing absent a concrete injury beyond the statutory violation.
- Whether a “bare procedural violation,” divorced from any concrete harm, can constitute injury in fact.
- 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.