U.S. Federal Trade Commission building in Washington, D.C. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

The Trend:

A novel consumer protection ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and a recent Federal Trade Commission settlement have in-house counsel at consumer-facing companies and the corporate defense lawyers who represent them gearing up for battle.

The Driver:

The Eleventh Circuit ruled in Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services that a plaintiff had standing to claim that a credit agency violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act's ban on third-party disclosure when it shared debtor information with a printing company.  As Law.com's Charles Toutant reported last week, that April decision has opened the floodgates for similar claims across the country alleging that a debtor's privacy is violated when debt collectors outsource printing of correspondence.