Last month, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted a motion to dismiss (opinion here) in favor of a defendant credit card issuer because the plaintiff lacked standing to bring his claims. The plaintiff had received a full refund of the disputed interest charge prior to the filing of his class action lawsuit.

In May 2009, the plaintiff opened a credit card account with one of the defendants, a bank credit card issuer. In July 2012, the plaintiff’s account statement reflected a positive credit balance that resulted from overpayment of the card’s annual membership fee. After five months of not using his credit card, the plaintiff discovered that his positive account balance went down to $0.00 after the bank assessed an interest charge. As a result, the positive balance amount was not available to apply towards later transactions. The plaintiff disputed the interest charge. The bank then sent the plaintiff a cashier’s check for the amount of the original positive balance in February 2013. The plaintiff refused to cash the check and, instead, filed a class action lawsuit against the bank and its parent company in July 2013.

The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint because it explicitly alleged that the defendants had breached the cardmember agreement by charging cardholders interest on positive credit balances. The court ruled that, because he had received a refund, the plaintiff lacked a concrete stake in the litigation and had failed to suffer an injury-in-fact.