- Case
- Muransky v. Godiva Chocolatier, Inc.
- Court
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (en banc)
- Citation
- 979 F.3d 917 (11th Cir. 2020) (en banc) (Nos. 16-16486, 16-16783)
- Decided
- October 28, 2020
- Bottom line
- In the Eleventh Circuit, an FCRA or FACTA violation without real harm or a real risk of harm will not support a federal lawsuit, so documenting how a violation affected you matters.
Background
The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA) amended the FCRA to add several identity theft protections. One of them, codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(g)(1), bars merchants from printing more than the last five digits of a credit or debit card number, or the expiration date, on a receipt given to the customer. A willful violation allows statutory damages of $100 to $1,000 per violation, plus punitive damages and attorney’s fees, under § 1681n.
Dr. David Muransky spent $19.26 at a Godiva store in Florida. His receipt showed the first six and last four digits of his card number. Less than a week later, he filed a class action on behalf of everyone who had received such a receipt from Godiva in the prior two years. His complaint said the violations were “statutory in nature” and that the suit was “not intended to request any recovery for personal injury.” Godiva faced potential exposure of more than $342 million.
With the Supreme Court’s decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins pending, the parties settled for $6.3 million, with about a third going to class counsel. The district court approved the settlement over objections. A panel of the Eleventh Circuit affirmed, finding standing, but the full court vacated that decision and reheard the case.
What the court held
Judge Grant wrote for the seven-judge majority. The court held that Muransky lacked standing, which meant the federal courts could not approve the settlement.
The court began with Spokeo, which held that a plaintiff does not automatically have standing whenever a statute grants a right and a cause of action. The plaintiff must allege a concrete injury. In the majority’s words, Spokeo’s answer to whether a bare statutory violation is enough “was a resounding no.” The court said federal courts “retain our constitutional duty to evaluate whether a plaintiff has pleaded a concrete injury—even where Congress has said that a party may sue over a statutory violation.”
Muransky argued that the receipt created an elevated risk of identity theft. The court found his general allegations too conclusory. It also pointed to Congress’s 2008 Clarification Act, which retroactively eliminated liability for printing expiration dates and stated that some technical FACTA violations caused consumers no harm. “Because the plaintiff alleged only a statutory violation, and not a concrete injury, he has no standing.”
The court vacated the settlement approval and remanded for the district court to dismiss without prejudice. Judges Wilson, Martin, and Jordan each wrote dissents.
Our take
Muransky is best understood as a pleading case. The complaint expressly disclaimed personal injury and offered only one-line assertions of harm. The dismissal was without prejudice, and in our view the decision leaves room for a plaintiff who pleads specific facts showing real harm or a material risk of harm. Several other circuits had already reached similar results on similar receipts, while the D.C. Circuit found standing in a case where the receipt showed the full card number and expiration date.
We think the dissents had a fair point that Congress, which made a deliberate judgment that excess card digits create identity theft risk, deserves weight on what counts as harm. But the Supreme Court moved further in the majority’s direction the next year in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez (2021), which held that only class members who suffered concrete harm can recover damages in federal court. Together, the two decisions make it harder to bring FCRA class actions over technical violations.
The ruling does not affect consumers who suffer actual harm from credit reporting errors. A false collection account that costs someone a loan, or a background check error that costs someone a job, is a concrete injury.
What it means if your report is wrong
Standing rules reward documentation. If an error on your credit or background report caused a denial, a higher interest rate, a lost job offer, or out-of-pocket costs, keep the denial letters, adverse action notices, emails, and receipts. Write down when you learned of the error and how it affected you, including stress or lost time. Dispute the error in writing and keep copies. That record is often what separates a claim a federal court will hear from one it will not. A free case review can assess what you have, and there is no fee unless we win.
Sources
Primary
Commentary we reviewed
Updated November 1, 2026. "Our take" is the firm's opinion. This page is general information, not legal advice, and later decisions may change the law.