In Ehrich v. Credit Protection Ass’n, L.P., — F.Supp.2d —-, 2012 WL 4119737 (E.D.N.Y. 2012), Judge Kohrman found that the facts of the FDCPA case and penalty-only plea did not confer Article III standing. Judge Kohrman did not address Supreme Court’s dismissal of certiorari (as to RESPA) in Edwards v. First American Corp. 610 F.3d 514 (9th Cir. 2010), nor did Judge Kohrman address other decisions (such as Smith v. Microsoft Corp. 2012 WL 2975712 (S.D.Cal. 2012)) substantively addressing the issue. (Smith found TCPA standing under Article III). The facts of Ehrich were unique, and Judge Kohrman found as follows:
Ehrich has suffered no actual injury stemming from CPA’s allegedly illegal collection notice. In fact, Ehrich has admitted that he speaks no Spanish; he thus could not have been misled by the Spanish phrases in the collection notice. The possibility that the collection notice’s limited use of Spanish might mislead a debtor who speaks only Spanish is immaterial to the issue of Ehrich’s standing in this case. In order to meet the constitutional requirements for standing, “the plaintiff must still allege a distinct and palpable injury to himself, even if it is an injury shared by a large class of other possible litigants.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501 (1975). Ehrich cannot meet this burden. ¶ Ehrich argues that the FDCPA provides for stat-utory standing in the absence of actual damages because it confers on the district judge the discretion to award liquidated statutory damages of up to $1,000. 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a)(2)(A). Nevertheless, the FDCPA’s statutory damages provision is insufficient in itself to confer standing upon a plaintiff who has no other basis for his or her claim. As the Supreme Court observed, “[a]n interest unrelated to injury in fact is insufficient to give a plaintiff standing.” Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 772 (2000). . .By contrast, Ehrich’s receipt of the collection no-tice from CPA, a notice that contained all disclosures required by the FDCPA and that Ehrich fully under-stood, simply does not constitute a cognizable injury, statutory or otherwise, sufficient to support standing. Nor does the class action nature of the complaint change this result. The choice to present a case as a class action rather than an individual claim “adds nothing to the question of standing,” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 357 (1996), because Rule 23 “does not relax this jurisdictional requirement.” Denny v. Deutsche Bank AG, 443 F.3d 253, 263 (2d Cir.2006). ¶ While a plaintiff need not demonstrate actual damages for standing in an FDCPA case, the plaintiff must at least allege some personal injury or intrusion of a personal right protected by the FDCPA. Ehrich has not pled any personal injury resulting from the deprivation of the protection afforded debtors by the FDCPA. Under these circumstances, the “irreducible constitutional minimum” of standing has not been met. CPA’s motion for summary judgment is granted, and Ehrich’s motion for judgment on the pleadings is denied.