McNaney v. Am. Collections Enter.

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EAN MCNANEY, Plaintiff, v. AMERICAN COLLECTIONS ENTERPRISE, INC., Defendant.

No. 1:23-cv-02396-JRR

United States District Court, D. Maryland

June 14, 2024

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Julie R. Rubin, United States District Judge.

This matter comes before the court on Defendant American Collections Enterprise, Inc.'s Motion to Dismiss the First Amended Complaint for Failure to State a Claim. (ECF No. 14; the “Motion”). The court has reviewed all papers. No hearing is necessary. Local Rule 105.6 (D. Md 2023).

I. BACKGROUND^[1]

This action arises out of numerous alleged telephone calls made by Defendant to Plaintiff in an attempt to collect on a debt incurred by Plaintiff's father. (ECF No. 13.) Plaintiff Ean McNaney is a citizen of the State of Maryland. Id. ¶ 4. Defendant is a debt collection agency located in Alexandria, Virginia. Id. ¶ 5.

Plaintiff alleges that a financial obligation (the “Debt”) was incurred by his deceased father to an original creditor. (ECF No. 13 ¶ 6.) The Debt was purchased, assigned, or transferred to Defendant for collection, or Defendant was employed by the original creditor to collect the Debt. Id. ¶ 8. Plaintiff alleges that the Debt arose from services provided by the original creditor, which were primarily for family, personal or household purposes. Id. ¶ 7. Plaintiff's father did not have any business debts. Id. Plaintiff alleges he is neither associated with nor responsible for repayment of his father's debt. Id. ¶ 18

In or around May 2022, Defendant called Plaintiff's telephone in an attempt to collect the Debt allegedly owed by Plaintiff's father. (ECF No. 13 ¶ 10.) Defendant asked to speak with Plaintiff's father. Id. ¶ 11. Plaintiff informed Defendant that his father was deceased and requested that Defendant cease calling him. Id. ¶ 12. Plaintiff alleges that Defendant continued to call Plaintiff a couple of times per month for about a year. Id. ¶ 13. On or around March 14, 2023, Defendant called Plaintiff's telephone again and asked to speak with Plaintiff's father. Id. ¶ 14. Plaintiff again informed Defendant that his father was deceased and requested that Defendant cease calling him. Id. ¶ 16.

Plaintiff alleges that Defendant's repeated calls after notifying Defendant that his father was deceased “were harassing and abusive,” and caused him significant distress. (ECF No. 13 ¶¶ 15, 17.) Specifically, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant's “calls to Plaintiff deprived Plaintiff of the use of his cellular telephone, increased Plaintiff's risk of personal injury resulting from the distraction and distress caused by Defendant's calls, increased usage of Plaintiff's telephone service, and decreased battery life of Plaintiff's cellular telephone.” Id. ¶ 20.

On September 1, 2023, Plaintiff filed the Complaint. (ECF No. 1.) On November 9, 2023, Plaintiff filed the Amended Complaint. (ECF No. 13.) The Amended Complaint sets forth three counts: Violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692, et seq. (“FDCPA”) (Count I); Violations of the Maryland Consumer Debt Collection Act, MD. CODE ANN., COMM. LAW §§ 14-201, et seq. (“MCDCA”) (Count II); and Invasion of Privacy by Intrusion Upon Seclusion (Count III). (ECF No. 13.) The prayer for relief seeks actual and statutory damages, costs and attorney's fees, and any other relief this court deems just and proper. Id.

II. LEGAL STANDARDS

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1)^[2]

“Rule 12(b)(1) governs motions to dismiss for mootness and for lack of standing, which pertain to subject matter jurisdiction.” Stone v. Trump, 400 F.Supp.3d 317, 333 (D. Md. 2019); see Barnett v. United States, 193 F.Supp.3d 515, 518 (D. Md. 2016) (“Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure authorizes dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”). The party invoking federal jurisdiction bears the burden of establishing standing. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). “Since they are not mere pleading requirements but rather an indispensable part of the plaintiff's case, each element must be supported in the same way as any other matter on which the plaintiff bears the burden of proof, i.e., with the manner and degree of evidence required at the successive stages of the litigation.” Id. at 561. “At the pleading stage, general factual allegations of injury resulting from the defendant's conduct may suffice, for on a motion to dismiss we presum[e] that general allegations embrace those specific facts that are necessary to support the claim.” Id. (citation omitted). “In response to a summary judgment motion, however, the plaintiff can no longer rest on such mere allegations, but must set forth by affidavit or other evidence specific facts, which for purposes of the summary judgment motion will be taken to be true.” Id. (citation omitted).

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a) and 12(b)(6)

Pursuant to Rule 8(a), “[a] pleading that states a claim for relief must contain . . . a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” FED. R. CIV. P. 8(a).

“In 2007, the Supreme Court of the United States set forth a new standard to be applied in assessing whether, under Rule 8(a)(2), a claim was articulated sufficiently to permit a court to conclude that, if its allegations were proved, relief could be granted. In so doing, the Supreme Court retired the standard of sufficiency under Rule 8(a)(2) that was set in Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, [] (1957).” Macronix Int'l Co., Ltd. v. Spansion, Inc., 4 F.Supp.3d. 797, 799 (E.D. Va. 2014). The Conley Court explained the requirements for a legally sufficient complaint as follows:

The decisive answer to this is that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure do not require a claimant to set out in detail the facts upon which he bases his claim. To the contrary, all the Rules require is ‘a short and plain statement of the claim' [citing Rule 8(a)(2)] that will give the defendant fair notice of what the plaintiff's claim is and the grounds upon which it rests. The illustrative forms appended to the Rules plainly demonstrate this.

355 U.S. at 48.

“In Twombly,^[3]the Court changed significantly how the legal sufficiency of a claim is to be measured when it is attacked under Rule 12(b)(6). As one eminent scholar of federal civil procedure has said of Twombly: ‘Notice pleading is dead. Say hello to plausibility pleading.'” Macronix, 4 F.Supp.3d at 799-800 (quoting A. Benjamin Spencer, Plausibility Pleading, 49 B.C. L. REV. 431, 431-32 (2008)). The “liberal pleading standard of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) has been decidedly tightened (if not discarded) in favor of a stricter standard requiring the pleading of facts painting a ‘plausible' picture of liability.” Id.; see also Nemet Chevrolet, Ltd. v. Consumeraffairs.com, Inc., 591 F.3d 250, 262 (4th Cir. 2009) (Jones, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part, and remarking that “Twombly and Iqbal^[4] announce a new, stricter pleading standard.”)

Rule 8 “does not require ‘detailed factual allegations,' but it demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp., v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). “The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,' but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). “Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief will, as the Court of Appeals observed, be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense.” Id. at 679. “But where the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged- but it has not show[n]-that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Id. (citing FED. R. CIV. P. 8(a)(2)).

“The purpose of Rule 12(b)(6) is to test the sufficiency of a complaint' and not to ‘resolve contests surrounding the facts, the merits of a claim, or the applicability of defenses.'” Presley v. Charlottesville, 464 F.3d 480, 483 (4th Cir. 2006) (quoting Edwards v. Goldsboro, 178 F.3d 231, 243 (4th Cir. 1999)). Accordingly, a “Rule 12(b)(6) motion should only be granted if, after accepting all well-pleaded allegations in the plaintiff's complaint as true and drawing all reasonable factual inferences from those facts in the plaintiff's favor, it appears certain that the plaintiff cannot prove any set of facts in support of his claim entitling him to relief.” Edwards, 178 F.3d at 244 (citing Republican Party v. Martin, 980 F.2d 943, 952 (4th Cir. 1992)). The court, however, is “. . . not required to accept as true the legal conclusions set forth in a plaintiff's complaint.” Id. (citing District 26, United Mine Workers of Am., Inc. v. Wellmore Coal Corp., 609 F.2d 1083, 1085 (4th Cir. 1979)).

III. ANALYSIS

A. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1)

Article III of the Constitution “confines the federal judicial power to the resolution of ‘Cases' and ‘Controversies.'” TransUnion LLC v Ramirez, 141 S.Ct. 2190, 2203 (2021). “For there to be a case or controversy under Article III, the plaintiff must have a personal stake in the case-in other words, standing.” Id. Standing consists of three elements: “[t]he plaintiff must have (1) suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant, and (3) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” Spokeo, Inc. v....