Maurice Wutscher’s Kevin Hudspeth Discusses FACTA Expiration Date Claims in Business Law Today

May 8, 2020 — Maurice Wutscher attorney Kevin Hudspeth has written an article for the American Bar Association’s news magazine Business Law Today in which he discusses FACTA expiration date claims and whether including expiration dates on sales receipts constitutes willful noncompliance.

In “Recklessly Disregarding a Nonexistent Risk of Harm: Does Including the Expiration Date on Electronically Printed Receipts Constitute Willful Noncompliance under FACTA?,” Mr. Hudspeth writes, “The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq., prohibits merchants from including, among other information, credit- and debit-card expiration dates on printed receipts. … After this provision originally became effective in 2004, plaintiff class-action firms flooded courts with expiration date lawsuits, which courts and others ‘met with varying degrees of contempt.’ …”

“A merchant who violates FACTA in a way that Congress specifically found does not increase the risk of identity theft cannot have recklessly disregarded the nonexistent risk, and it therefore cannot have willfully failed to comply with the act. … State courts forced to hear expiration date claims because federal courts will not exercise jurisdiction over them should dismiss the claims with prejudice at the pleading stage,” he writes.