Baccay v. Heartland Payment Sys., LLC, Civil Action No. 17-07779 (FLW) (LHG)
| Decision Date | 28 January 2019 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 17-07779 (FLW) (LHG) |
| Parties | JOSEPHINE E. BACCAY, on behalf of herself, all others similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. HEARTLAND PAYMENT SYSTEMS, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company; HEARTLAND PAYMENT SOLUTIONS, INC., a Delaware corporation; and DOES 1 through 100, inclusive, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey |
*NOT FOR PUBLICATION*
:
Pending before the Court is a motion for summary judgment from Defendants Heartland Payment Systems ("HPS") and Heartland Payment Solutions ("Solutions") (collectively, "Defendants"), seeking dismissal of all claims in the Complaint of Plaintiff Josephine E. Baccay ("Plaintiff"), on the basis that Plaintiff lacks standing to bring certain federal claims and that the remaining state law claims lack sufficient factual allegations. Plaintiff's Complaint, brought as a putative class action, includes one federal and three state causes of action related to the employment application that Plaintiff completed before taking a job with HPS: 1) violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA"), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681b(b)(2)(A);1 2) violation of theInvestigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act ("ICRAA"), Cal. Civ. Code § 1786, et seq.; 3) violation of the Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act ("CCRAA"), Cal. Civ. Code § 1785 et seq.; and 4) violation of California's Unfair Competition Law ("UCL"), Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 17200, et seq. For the reasons that follow, Defendants' motion for summary judgment is granted, in part, as Plaintiff lacks Article III standing to assert her FCRA claim, and the remaining California state law claims lack factual support and must be dismissed. Defendant's motion is denied insofar as it seeks dismissal of the FCRA claim, as this claim must be remanded to the Superior Court of California, Sacramento, where Plaintiff initially brought the case.
Plaintiff is a California citizen who worked for HPS, a limited liability company organized and existing under the laws of Delaware, for two months in 2016 before "voluntarily resign[ing]." Certification of Steven Rosenwasser ("Rosenwasser Cert."), Exhibit A ("Baccay Dep.") at 80:4; Complaint at ¶¶ 4-5. Although Solutions is named as a Defendant in the Complaint, Plaintiff concedes that HPS and Solutions are separate entities, and she never applied for a position with nor worked for Solutions.2 Defendants' Statement of Material Facts Not in Dispute ("DSOF") at ¶ 4.
Plaintiff's case hinges on a form that was part of her employment application package that allegedly contained extraneous language in violation of both the FCRA and ICRAA. HPS uses an on-line application process, in which a document is presented to an applicant, he or she signs it, and then the next document is presented. Id. at ¶ 16. When Plaintiff applied for the job with HPS on September 24, 2016, HPS presented her with a "Notice Regarding Background Investigation" (the "Disclosure Form"). Id. at ¶ 13. The Disclosure Form stated:
[HPS] may obtain information about you from a consumer reporting agency for employment purposes. Thus, you may be the subject of a "consumer report" and/or an "investigative consumer report" which may include information about your character, general reputation, personal characteristics, and/or mode of living, and which can involve personal interviews with employers and or associates.
Rosenwasser Cert., Ex. J at 1.
According to Plaintiff, certain release language in the employment application violated the FCRA's prohibition on extraneous language. However, although Plaintiff points to the fact that a separate employment application form contained the release language, there is no dispute that the Disclosure Form itself contained no such language, and Plaintiff confirmed that she "received and signed [the Disclosure Form] separately from the employment application." Baccay Dep. at 98:1-4. Nonetheless, Plaintiff seems to suggest that the separate employment application form containing the release language should be considered in conjunction with the Disclosure Form. PRSOF at 9.
In her deposition, Plaintiff repeatedly testified that the Disclosure Form did not cause her confusion, and that she understood the implications of the document she was signing:
Baccay Dep. at 98:5-16. Plaintiff further testified that she was comfortable agreeing to provide personal information for the purposes of a background check:
Id. at 77:22-78:12. Moreover, any extraneous material contained in the Disclosure Form did not affect Plaintiff's decision to authorize HPS to conduct a background check, as she confirmed, in her deposition, that, "no matter what [the Disclosure Form] said, [she was] going to sign this document because [she] wanted a job." Id. at 103:3-6.
Plaintiff also asserts various claims that, based on discovery, appear to have no factual support at all. First, Plaintiff asserts that Defendant violated the FCRA by failing to include a "summary of rights" in the Disclosure Form. However, the Disclosure Form includes a sentence that states, "You have the right, upon written request made within a reasonable time after receipt of this notice, to request disclosure of the nature and scope of any investigative consumer report and a Summary of Your Rights Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act," DSOF at ¶ 14, and HPS, in fact, presented Plaintiff with the "summary of rights" document. Id. at ¶ 15. Second, Plaintiff also asserts a claim under the CCRAA premised on the unauthorized disclosure of information to a credit reporting agency, but it is undisputed that HPS never obtained a credit report on Plaintiff.Id. at ¶ 10. Third, the Complaint asserts claims based on a "Reference Release Form" and "Driving Record Authorization Form," but Plaintiff concedes that Defendants never provided her with these forms. Id. at ¶¶ 11-12.
Plaintiff initially brought this suit as a putative class action on May 22, 2017, in the Superior Court of California, Sacramento, asserting one cause of action each under the FCRA, ICRAA, CCRAA and UCL. On July 3, 2017, Defendants removed the case to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California based on federal question jurisdiction and the Class Action Fairness Act ("CAFA"). On July 17, 2017, Defendants moved to change venue pursuant to the parties' Sales Employee Agreement, which contained a forum-selection clause designating the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey as the exclusive forum for the suit. On October 2, 2017, this motion was granted, and the case was transferred to this Court.3 Following a pretrial scheduling conference on May 9, 2018, Defendants filed the present summary judgment motion.
Summary judgment is appropriate where the Court is satisfied that "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986). A factual dispute is genuine only if there is "a sufficient evidentiary basis on which a reasonable jury could find for the non-moving party," and it is material only if it has the ability to "affect the outcome of the suit under governing law." Kaucher v. County of Bucks, 455 F.3d 418, 423 (3d Cir. 2006); see also Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). Disputes over irrelevant orunnecessary facts will not preclude a grant of summary judgment. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248. "In considering a motion for summary judgment, a district court may not make credibility determinations or engage in any weighing of the evidence; instead, the non-moving party's evidence 'is to be believed and all justifiable inferences are to be drawn in his favor .'" Marino v. Indus. Crating Co., 358 F.3d 241, 247 (3d Cir. 2004) (quoting Anderson, 447 U.S. at 255)); see also Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986); Curley v. Klem, 298 F.3d 271, 276-77 (3d Cir. 2002).
The burden of establishing that no "genuine issue" exists is on the party moving for summary judgment. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 330. "A nonmoving party has created a genuine issue of material fact if it has provided sufficient evidence to allow a jury to find in its favor at trial." Gleason v. Norwest Mortg., Inc., 243 F.3d 130, 138 (3d Cir. 2001). The non-moving party must present "more than a scintilla of evidence showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." Woloszyn v. County of Lawrence, 396 F.3d 314, 319 (3d Cir. 2005) (quotations omitted). Under Anderson, plaintiffs' proffered evidence must be sufficient to meet the substantive evidentiary standard the jury would have to use at trial. 477 U.S. at 255. To do so, the non-moving party must "go beyond the pleadings and by her own affidavits, or by the depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, designate specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." Celotex, 477 U.S. at 324 (quotations omitted); see also Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 586; Ridgewood Bd. of Ed. v...
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