NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,
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															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 20–297

															_________________

															TRANSUNION LLC, PETITIONER v. SERGIO L.
RAMIREZ

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 25, 2021]

															Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the
Court.

															To have Article III standing to sue in federal
court, plaintiffs must demonstrate, among other things, that they
suffered a concrete harm. No concrete harm, no standing. Central to
assessing concreteness is whether the asserted harm has a “close
relationship” to a harm traditionally recognized as providing a
basis for a lawsuit in American courts—such as physical harm,
monetary harm, or various intangible harms including (as relevant
here) reputational harm. Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins , 578
U.S. 330, 340–341 (2016).

															In this case, a class of 8,185 individuals sued
TransUnion, a credit reporting agency, in federal court under the
Fair Credit Reporting Act. The plaintiffs claimed that TransUnion
failed to use reasonable procedures to ensure the accuracy of their
credit files, as maintained internally by TransUnion. For 1,853 of
the class members, TransUnion provided misleading credit reports to
third-party businesses. We conclude that those 1,853 class members
have demonstrated concrete reputational harm and thus have Article
III standing to sue on the reasonable-procedures claim. The
internal credit files of the other 6,332 class members were not provided to third-party businesses during the relevant
time period. We conclude that those 6,332 class members have not
demonstrated concrete harm and thus lack Article III standing to
sue on the reasonable-procedures claim.

															In two other claims, all 8,185 class members
complained about formatting defects in certain mailings sent to
them by TransUnion. But the class members other than the named
plaintiff Sergio Ramirez have not demonstrated that the alleged
formatting errors caused them any concrete harm. Therefore, except
for Ramirez, the class members do not have standing as to those two
claims.

															Over Judge McKeown’s dissent, the U. S.
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that all 8,185 class
members have standing as to all three claims. The Court of Appeals
approved a class damages award of about $40 million. In light of
our conclusion that (i) only 1,853 class members have standing for
the reasonable-procedures claim and (ii) only Ramirez himself
has standing for the two formatting claims relating to the
mailings, we reverse the judgment of the Ninth Circuit and remand
the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

															I

															In 1970, Congress passed and President Nixon
signed the Fair Credit Reporting Act. 84Stat. 1127, as amended, 15
U. S. C. §1681 et seq . The Act seeks to promote
“fair and accurate credit reporting” and to protect consumer
privacy. §1681(a). To achieve those goals, the Act regulates the
consumer reporting agencies that compile and disseminate personal
information about consumers.

															The Act “imposes a host of requirements
concerning the creation and use of consumer reports.” Spokeo,
Inc. v. Robins , 578 U.S. 330, 335 (2016). Three of the
Act’s requirements are relevant to this case. First , the Act
requires consumer reporting agencies to “follow reasonable
procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy” in consumer
reports. §1681e(b). Second , the Act provides that consumer
reporting agencies must, upon request, disclose to the consumer
“[a]ll information in the consumer’s file at the time of the
request.” §1681g(a)(1). Third , the Act compels consumer
reporting agencies to “provide to a consumer, with each written
disclosure by the agency to the consumer,” a “summary of rights”
prepared by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
§1681g(c)(2).

															The Act creates a cause of action for consumers
to sue and recover damages for certain violations. The Act
provides: “Any person who willfully fails to comply with any
requirement imposed under this subchapter with respect to any
consumer is liable to that consumer” for actual damages or for
statutory damages not less than $100 and not more than $1,000, as
well as for punitive damages and attorney’s fees. §1681n(a).

															TransUnion is one of the “Big Three” credit
reporting agencies, along with Equifax and Experian. As a credit
reporting agency, TransUnion compiles personal and financial
information about individual consumers to create consumer reports.
TransUnion then sells those consumer reports for use by entities
such as banks, landlords, and car dealerships that request
information about the creditworthiness of individual consumers.

															Beginning in 2002, TransUnion introduced an
add-on product called OFAC Name Screen Alert. OFAC is the
U. S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
OFAC maintains a list of “specially designated nationals” who
threaten America’s national security. Individuals on the OFAC list
are terrorists, drug traffickers, or other serious criminals. It is
generally unlawful to transact business with any person on the
list. 31 CFR pt. 501, App. A (2020). TransUnion created the OFAC
Name Screen Alert to help businesses avoid transacting with
individuals on OFAC’s list.

															When this litigation arose, Name Screen worked
in the following way: When a business opted into the Name Screen
service, TransUnion would conduct its ordinary credit check of the
consumer, and it would also use third-party software to compare the
consumer’s name against the OFAC list. If the consumer’s first and
last name matched the first and last name of an individual on
OFAC’s list, then TransUnion would place an alert on the credit
report indicating that the consumer’s name was a “potential match”
to a name on the OFAC list. TransUnion did not compare any data
other than first and last names. Unsurprisingly, TransUnion’s Name
Screen product generated many false positives. Thousands of
law-abiding Americans happen to share a first and last name with
one of the terrorists, drug traffickers, or serious criminals on
OFAC’s list of specially designated nationals.

															Sergio Ramirez learned the hard way that he is
one such individual. On February 27, 2011, Ramirez visited a Nissan
dealership in Dublin, California, seeking to buy a Nissan Maxima.
Ramirez was accompanied by his wife and his father-in-law. After
Ramirez and his wife selected a color and negotiated a price, the
dealership ran a credit check on both Ramirez and his wife.
Ramirez’s credit report, produced by TransUnion, contained the
following alert: “***OFAC ADVISOR ALERT - INPUT NAME MATCHES NAME
ON THE OFAC DATABASE.” App. 84. A Nissan salesman told Ramirez that
Nissan would not sell the car to him because his name was on a
“ ‘terrorist list.’ ” Id., at 333. Ramirez’s wife
had to purchase the car in her own name.

															The next day, Ramirez called TransUnion and
requested a copy of his credit file. TransUnion sent Ramirez a
mailing that same day that included his credit file and the
statutorily required summary of rights prepared by the CFPB. The
mailing did not mention the OFAC alert in Ramirez’s file. The
following day, TransUnion sent Ramirez a second mailing—a letter
alerting him that his name was considered a potential match to
names on the OFAC list. The second mailing did not include an
additional copy of the summary of rights. Concerned about the
mailings, Ramirez consulted a lawyer and ultimately canceled a
planned trip to Mexico. TransUnion eventually removed the OFAC
alert from Ramirez’s file.

															In February 2012, Ramirez sued TransUnion and
alleged three violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. First , he alleged that TransUnion, by using the Name Screen
product, failed to follow reasonable procedures to ensure the
accuracy of information in his credit file. See §1681e(b). Second , he claimed that TransUnion failed to provide him
with all the information in his credit file upon his
request. In particular, TransUnion’s first mailing did not include
the fact that Ramirez’s name was a potential match for a name on
the OFAC list. See §1681g(a)(1). Third , Ramirez asserted
that TransUnion violated its obligation to provide him with a
summary of his rights “with each written disclosure,” because
TransUnion’s second mailing did not contain a summary of Ramirez’s
rights. §1681g(c)(2). Ramirez requested statutory and punitive
damages.

															Ramirez also sought to certify a class of all
people in the United States to whom TransUnion sent a mailing
during the period from January 1, 2011, to July 26, 2011, that was
similar in form to the second mailing that Ramirez received.
TransUnion opposed certification. The U. S. District Court for
the Northern District of California rejected TransUnion’s argument
and certified the class. 301 F.R.D. 408 (2014).

															Before trial, the parties stipulated that the
class contained 8,185 members, including Ramirez. The parties also
stipulated that only 1,853 members of the class (including Ramirez)
had their credit reports disseminated by TransUnion to potential
creditors during the period from January 1, 2011, to July 26, 2011.
The District Court ruled that all 8,185 class members had Article
III standing. 2016 WL 6070490, *5 (Oct. 17, 2016).

															At trial, Ramirez testified about his experience
at the Nissan dealership. But Ramirez did not present evidence
about the experiences of other members of the class.

															After six days of trial, the jury returned a
verdict for the plaintiffs. The jury awarded each class member
$984.22 in statutory damages and $6,353.08 in punitive damages for
a total award of more than $60 million. The District Court rejected
all of TransUnion’s post-trial motions.

															The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit affirmed in relevant part. 951 F.3d 1008 (2020). The court
held that all members of the class had Article III standing to
recover damages for all three claims. The court also concluded that
Ramirez’s claims were typical of the class’s claims for purposes of
Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Finally, the court
reduced the punitive damages award to $3,936.88 per class member,
thus reducing the total award to about $40 million.

															Judge McKeown dissented in relevant part. As to
the reasonable-procedures claim, she concluded that only the 1,853
class members whose reports were actually disseminated by
TransUnion to third parties had Article III standing to recover
damages. In her view, the remaining 6,332 class members did not
suffer a concrete injury sufficient for standing. As to the two
claims related to the mailings, Judge McKeown would have held that
none of the 8,185 class members other than the named plaintiff
Ramirez had standing as to those claims.

															We granted certiorari. 592 U. S. ___
(2020).

															II

															The question in this case is whether the 8,185
class members have Article III standing as to their three claims.
In Part II, we summarize the requirements of Article III
standing—in particular, the requirement that plaintiffs demonstrate
a “concrete harm.” In Part III, we then apply the concrete-harm
requirement to the plaintiffs’ lawsuit against TransUnion.

															A

															The “law of Art. III standing is built on a
single basic idea—the idea of separation of powers.” Raines v. Byrd , 521 U.S.
811 , 820 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted). Separation
of powers “was not simply an abstract generalization in the minds
of the Framers: it was woven into the document that they drafted in
Philadelphia in the summer of 1787.” INS v. Chadha , 462 U.S.
919 , 946 (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted).

															Therefore, we start with the text of the
Constitution. Article III confines the federal judicial power to
the resolution of “Cases” and “Controversies.” For there to be a
case or controversy under Article III, the plaintiff must have a
“ ‘personal stake’ ” in the case—in other words,
standing. Raines , 521 U. S., at 819. To demonstrate
their personal stake, plaintiffs must be able to sufficiently
answer the question: “ ‘What’s it to you?’ ” Scalia, The
Doctrine of Standing as an Essential Element of the Separation of
Powers, 17 Suffolk U. L. Rev. 881, 882 (1983).

															To answer that question in a way sufficient to
establish standing, a plaintiff must show (i) that he suffered an
injury in fact that is concrete, particularized, and actual or
imminent; (ii) that the injury was likely caused by the defendant;
and (iii) that the injury would likely be redressed by judicial
relief. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504
U.S. 555 , 560–561 (1992). If “the plaintiff does not claim to
have suffered an injury that the defendant caused and the court can
remedy, there is no case or controversy for the federal court to
resolve.” Casillas v. Madison Avenue Assocs., Inc. ,
926 F.3d 329, 333 (CA7 2019) (Barrett, J.).

															Requiring a plaintiff to demonstrate a concrete
and particularized injury caused by the defendant and redressable
by the court ensures that federal courts decide only “the rights of
individuals,” Marbury v. Madison , 1 Cranch 137, 170
(1803), and that federal courts exercise “their proper function in
a limited and separated government,” Roberts, Article III Limits on
Statutory Standing, 42 Duke L. J. 1219, 1224 (1993). Under
Article III, federal courts do not adjudicate hypothetical or
abstract disputes. Federal courts do not possess a roving
commission to publicly opine on every legal question. Federal
courts do not exercise general legal oversight of the Legislative
and Executive Branches, or of private entities. And federal courts
do not issue advisory opinions. As Madison explained in
Philadelphia, federal courts instead decide only matters “of a
Judiciary Nature.” 2 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p.
430 (M. Farrand ed. 1966).

															In sum, under Article III, a federal court may
resolve only “a real controversy with real impact on real persons.” American Legion v. American Humanist Assn. , 588
U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (Gorsuch, J., concurring in judgment)
(slip op., at 10).

															B

															The question in this case focuses on the
Article III requirement that the plaintiff ’s injury in fact
be “concrete”—that is, “real, and not abstract.” Spokeo,
Inc. v. Robins , 578 U.S. 330, 340 (2016) (internal
quotation marks omitted); see Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus , 573 U.S.
149 , 158 (2014); Summers v. Earth Island
Institute , 555
U.S. 488 , 493 (2009); Lujan , 504 U. S., at 560; Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War , 418 U.S.
208 , 220–221 (1974).

															What makes a harm concrete for purposes of
Article III? As a general matter, the Court has explained that
“history and tradition offer a meaningful guide to the types of
cases that Article III empowers federal courts to consider.” Sprint Communications Co. v. APCC Services, Inc. , 554 U.S.
269 , 274 (2008); see also Steel Co. v. Citizens for
Better Environment , 523 U.S.
83 , 102 (1998). And with respect to the concrete-harm
requirement in particular, this Court’s opinion in Spokeo v. Robins indicated that courts should assess whether the
alleged injury to the plaintiff has a “close relationship” to a
harm “traditionally” recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit
in American courts. 578 U. S., at 341. That inquiry asks
whether plaintiffs have identified a close historical or common-law
analogue for their asserted injury. Spokeo does not require
an exact duplicate in American history and tradition. But Spokeo is not an open-ended invitation for federal courts to
loosen Article III based on contemporary, evolving beliefs about
what kinds of suits should be heard in federal courts.

															As Spokeo explained, certain harms
readily qualify as concrete injuries under Article III. The most
obvious are traditional tangible harms, such as physical harms and
monetary harms. If a defendant has caused physical or monetary
injury to the plaintiff, the plaintiff has suffered a concrete
injury in fact under Article III.

															Various intangible harms can also be concrete.
Chief among them are injuries with a close relationship to harms
traditionally recognized as providing a basis for lawsuits in
American courts. Id. , at 340–341. Those include, for
example, reputational harms, disclosure of private information, and
intrusion upon seclusion. See, e.g., Meese v. Keene , 481 U.S.
465 , 473 (1987) (reputational harms); Davis v. Federal Election Comm’n , 554 U.S.
724 , 733 (2008) (disclosure of private information); see also Gadelhak v. AT&T Services, Inc. , 950 F.3d 458,
462 (CA7 2020) (Barrett, J.) (intrusion upon seclusion). And those
traditional harms may also include harms specified by the
Constitution itself. See, e.g., Spokeo , 578
U. S., at 340 (citing Pleasant Grove City v. Summum , 555 U.S.
460 (2009) (abridgment of free speech), and Church of Lukumi
Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah , 508
U.S. 520 (1993) (infringement of free exercise)).

															In determining whether a harm is sufficiently
concrete to qualify as an injury in fact, the Court in Spokeo said that Congress’s views may be “instructive.” 578
U. S., at 341. Courts must afford due respect to Congress’s
decision to impose a statutory prohibition or obligation on a
defendant, and to grant a plaintiff a cause of action to sue over
the defendant’s violation of that statutory prohibition or
obligation. See id., at 340–341. In that way, Congress may
“elevate to the status of legally cognizable injuries concrete, de facto injuries that were previously inadequate in
law.” Id., at 341 (alterations and internal quotation marks
omitted); see Lujan , 504 U. S., at 562–563, 578; cf., e.g., Allen v. Wright , 468
U.S. 737 , 757, n. 22 (1984) (discriminatory treatment). But
even though “Congress may ‘elevate’ harms that ‘exist’ in the real
world before Congress recognized them to actionable legal status,
it may not simply enact an injury into existence, using its
lawmaking power to transform something that is not remotely harmful
into something that is.” Hagy v. Demers & Adams ,
882 F.3d 616, 622 (CA6 2018) (Sutton, J.) (citing Spokeo ,
578 U. S., at 341).

															Importantly, this Court has rejected the
proposition that “a plaintiff automatically satisfies the
injury-in-fact requirement whenever a statute grants a person a
statutory right and purports to authorize that person to sue to
vindicate that right.” Spokeo , 578 U. S., at 341. As
the Court emphasized in Spokeo , “Article III standing
requires a concrete injury even in the context of a statutory
violation.” Ibid. Congress’s creation of a statutory prohibition
or obligation and a cause of action does not relieve courts of
their responsibility to independently decide whether a plaintiff
has suffered a concrete harm under Article III any more than, for
example, Congress’s enactment of a law regulating speech relieves
courts of their responsibility to independently decide whether the
law violates the First Amendment. Cf. United States v. Eichman , 496 U.S.
310 , 317–318 (1990). As Judge Katsas has rightly stated, “we
cannot treat an injury as ‘concrete’ for Article III purposes based
only on Congress’s say-so.” Trichell v. Midland Credit
Mgmt., Inc. , 964 F.3d 990, 999, n. 2 (CA11 2020) (sitting by
designation); see Marbury , 1 Cranch, at 178; see also Raines , 521 U. S., at 820, n. 3; Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization , 426 U.S.
26 , 41, n. 22 (1976); Muskrat v. United States , 219 U.S.
346 , 361–362 (1911).

															For standing purposes, therefore, an important
difference exists between (i) a plaintiff ’s statutory cause
of action to sue a defendant over the defendant’s violation of
federal law, and (ii) a plaintiff ’s suffering concrete harm
because of the defendant’s violation of federal law. Congress may
enact legal prohibitions and obligations. And Congress may create
causes of action for plaintiffs to sue defendants who violate those
legal prohibitions or obligations. But under Article III, an injury
in law is not an injury in fact. Only those plaintiffs who have
been concretely harmed by a defendant’s statutory
violation may sue that private defendant over that violation in
federal court. As then-Judge Barrett succinctly summarized,
“Article III grants federal courts the power to redress harms that
defendants cause plaintiffs, not a freewheeling power to hold
defendants accountable for legal infractions.” Casillas , 926
F. 3d, at 332.

															To appreciate how the Article III “concrete
harm” principle operates in practice, consider two different
hypothetical plaintiffs. Suppose first that a Maine citizen’s land
is polluted by a nearby factory. She sues the company, alleging
that it violated a federal environmental law and damaged her
property. Suppose also that a second plaintiff in Hawaii files a
federal lawsuit alleging that the same company in Maine violated
that same environmental law by polluting land in Maine. The
violation did not personally harm the plaintiff in Hawaii.

															Even if Congress affords both hypothetical
plaintiffs a cause of action (with statutory damages available) to
sue over the defendant’s legal violation, Article III standing
doctrine sharply distinguishes between those two scenarios. The
first lawsuit may of course proceed in federal court because the
plaintiff has suffered concrete harm to her property. But the
second lawsuit may not proceed because that plaintiff has not
suffered any physical, monetary, or cognizable intangible harm
traditionally recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit in
American courts. An uninjured plaintiff who sues in those
circumstances is, by definition, not seeking to remedy any harm to
herself but instead is merely seeking to ensure a defendant’s
“compliance with regulatory law” (and, of course, to obtain some
money via the statutory damages). Spokeo, 578 U. S., at
345 (Thomas, J., concurring) (internal quotation marks omitted);
see Steel Co. , 523 U. S., at 106–107. Those are not
grounds for Article III standing.[ 1 ]

															As those examples illustrate, if the law of
Article III did not require plaintiffs to demonstrate a “concrete
harm,” Congress could authorize virtually any citizen to bring a
statutory damages suit against virtually any defendant who violated
virtually any federal law. Such an expansive understanding of
Article III would flout constitutional text, history, and
precedent. In our view, the public interest that private entities
comply with the law cannot “be converted into an individual right
by a statute that denominates it as such, and that permits all
citizens (or, for that matter, a subclass of citizens who suffer no
distinctive concrete harm) to sue.” Lujan , 504 U. S.,
at 576–577.[ 2 ]

															A regime where Congress could freely authorize unharmed plaintiffs to sue defendants who violate federal
law not only would violate Article III but also would infringe on
the Executive Branch’s Article II authority. We accept the
“displacement of the democratically elected branches when necessary
to decide an actual case.” Roberts, 42 Duke L. J. , at
1230. But otherwise, the choice of how to prioritize and how
aggressively to pursue legal actions against defendants who violate
the law falls within the discretion of the Executive Branch, not
within the purview of private plaintiffs (and their attorneys).
Private plaintiffs are not accountable to the people and are not
charged with pursuing the public interest in enforcing a
defendant’s general compliance with regulatory law. See Lujan , 504 U. S., at 577.

															In sum, the concrete-harm requirement is
essential to the Constitution’s separation of powers. To be sure,
the concrete-harm requirement can be difficult to apply in some
cases. Some advocate that the concrete-harm requirement be ditched
altogether, on the theory that it would be more efficient or
convenient to simply say that a statutory violation and a cause of
action suffice to afford a plaintiff standing. But as the Court has
often stated, “the fact that a given law or procedure is efficient,
convenient, and useful in facilitating functions of government,
standing alone, will not save it if it is contrary to the
Constitution.” Chadha , 462 U. S., at 944. So it is
here.[ 3 ]

															III

															We now apply those fundamental standing
principles to this lawsuit. We must determine whether the 8,185
class members have standing to sue TransUnion for its alleged
violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The plaintiffs argue
that TransUnion failed to comply with statutory obligations (i) to
follow reasonable procedures to ensure the accuracy of credit files
so that the files would not include OFAC alerts labeling the
plaintiffs as potential terrorists; and (ii) to provide a consumer,
upon request, with his or her complete credit file, including a
summary of rights.

															Some preliminaries: As the party invoking
federal jurisdiction, the plaintiffs bear the burden of
demonstrating that they have standing. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504
U.S. 555 , 561 (1992). Every class member must have Article III
standing in order to recover individual damages. “Article III does
not give federal courts the power to order relief to any uninjured
plaintiff, class action or not.” Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo , 577 U.S. 442, 466 (2016) (Roberts, C. J.,
concurring).[ 4 ] Plaintiffs must
maintain their personal interest in the dispute at all stages of
litigation. Davis v. Federal Election Comm’n , 554 U.S.
724 , 733 (2008). A plaintiff must demonstrate standing “with
the manner and degree of evidence required at the successive stages
of the litigation.” Lujan , 504 U. S., at 561.
Therefore, in a case like this that proceeds to trial, the specific
facts set forth by the plaintiff to support standing “must be
supported adequately by the evidence adduced at trial.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). And standing is
not dispensed in gross; rather, plaintiffs must demonstrate
standing for each claim that they press and for each form of relief
that they seek (for example, injunctive relief and damages). Davis , 554 U. S., at 734; Friends of the Earth,
Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc. , 528 U.S.
167 , 185 (2000).

															A

															We first address the plaintiffs’ claim that
TransUnion failed to “follow reasonable procedures to assure
maximum possible accuracy” of the plaintiffs’ credit files
maintained by TransUnion. 15 U. S. C. §1681e(b). In
particular, the plaintiffs argue that TransUnion did not do enough
to ensure that OFAC alerts labeling them as potential terrorists
were not included in their credit files.

															Assuming that the plaintiffs are correct that
TransUnion violated its obligations under the Fair Credit Reporting
Act to use reasonable procedures in internally maintaining the
credit files, we must determine whether the 8,185 class members
suffered concrete harm from TransUnion’s failure to employ
reasonable procedures.[ 5 ]

															1

															Start with the 1,853 class members (including
the named plaintiff Ramirez) whose reports were disseminated to
third-party businesses. The plaintiffs argue that the publication
to a third party of a credit report bearing a misleading OFAC alert
injures the subject of the report. The plaintiffs contend that this
injury bears a “close relationship” to a harm traditionally
recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit in American
courts—namely, the reputational harm associated with the tort of
defamation. Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins , 578 U.S. 330, 341
(2016).

															We agree with the plaintiffs. Under longstanding
American law, a person is injured when a defamatory statement “that
would subject him to hatred, contempt, or ridicule” is published to
a third party. Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. , 497 U.S.
1 , 13 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted); Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. , 418 U.S.
323 , 349 (1974); see also Restatement of Torts §559 (1938).
TransUnion provided third parties with credit reports containing
OFAC alerts that labeled the class members as potential terrorists,
drug traffickers, or serious criminals. The 1,853 class members
therefore suffered a harm with a “close relationship” to the harm
associated with the tort of defamation. We have no trouble
concluding that the 1,853 class members suffered a concrete harm
that qualifies as an injury in fact.

															TransUnion counters that those 1,853 class
members did not suffer a harm with a “close relationship” to
defamation because the OFAC alerts on the disseminated credit
reports were only misleading and not literally false. See id. , §558. TransUnion points out that the reports merely
identified a consumer as a “ potential match” to an
individual on the OFAC list—a fact that TransUnion says is not
technically false.

															In looking to whether a plaintiff ’s
asserted harm has a “close relationship” to a harm traditionally
recognized as providing a basis for a lawsuit in American courts,
we do not require an exact duplicate. The harm from being labeled a
“potential terrorist” bears a close relationship to the harm from
being labeled a “terrorist.” In other words, the harm from a
misleading statement of this kind bears a sufficiently close
relationship to the harm from a false and defamatory statement.

															In short, the 1,853 class members whose reports
were disseminated to third parties suffered a concrete injury in
fact under Article III.

															2

															The remaining 6,332 class members are a
different story. To be sure, their credit files, which were
maintained by TransUnion, contained misleading OFAC alerts. But the
parties stipulated that TransUnion did not provide those
plaintiffs’ credit information to any potential creditors during
the class period from January 2011 to July 2011. Given the absence
of dissemination, we must determine whether the 6,332 class members
suffered some other concrete harm for purposes of Article III.

															The initial question is whether the mere
existence of a misleading OFAC alert in a consumer’s internal
credit file at TransUnion constitutes a concrete injury. As Judge
Tatel phrased it in a similar context, “if inaccurate information
falls into” a consumer’s credit file, “does it make a sound?” Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Assn., Inc. v. United
States Dept. of Transp. , 879 F.3d 339, 344 (CADC 2018).

															Writing the opinion for the D. C. Circuit
in Owner-Operator , Judge Tatel answered no. Publication is
“essential to liability” in a suit for defamation. Restatement of
Torts §577, Comment a , at 192. And there is “no historical
or common-law analog where the mere existence of inaccurate
information, absent dissemination, amounts to concrete injury.” Owner-Operator , 879 F. 3d, at 344–345. “Since the basis
of the action for words was the loss of credit or fame, and not the
insult, it was always necessary to show a publication of the
words.” J. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History 474 (5th
ed. 2019). Other Courts of Appeals have similarly recognized that,
as Judge Colloton summarized, the “retention of information
lawfully obtained, without further disclosure, traditionally has
not provided the basis for a lawsuit in American courts,” meaning
that the mere existence of inaccurate information in a database is
insufficient to confer Article III standing. Braitberg v. Charter Communications, Inc. , 836 F.3d 925, 930 (CA8 2016);
see Gubala v. Time Warner Cable, Inc. , 846 F.3d 909,
912 (CA7 2017).

															The standing inquiry in this case thus
distinguishes between (i) credit files that consumer reporting
agencies maintain internally and (ii) the consumer credit reports
that consumer reporting agencies disseminate to third-party
creditors. The mere presence of an inaccuracy in an internal credit
file, if it is not disclosed to a third party, causes no concrete
harm. In cases such as these where allegedly inaccurate or
misleading information sits in a company database, the plaintiffs’
harm is roughly the same, legally speaking, as if someone wrote a
defamatory letter and then stored it in her desk drawer. A letter
that is not sent does not harm anyone, no matter how insulting the
letter is. So too here.[ 6 ]

															Because the plaintiffs cannot demonstrate that
the misleading information in the internal credit files itself
constitutes a concrete harm, the plaintiffs advance a separate
argument based on an asserted risk of future harm .
They say that the 6,332 class members suffered a concrete injury
for Article III purposes because the existence of misleading OFAC
alerts in their internal credit files exposed them to a material
risk that the information would be disseminated in the future to
third parties and thereby cause them harm. The plaintiffs rely on
language from Spokeo where the Court said that “the risk of
real harm” (or as the Court otherwise stated, a “material risk of
harm”) can sometimes “satisfy the requirement of concreteness.” 578
U. S., at 341–342 (citing Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l
USA , 568 U.S.
398 (2013)).

															To support its statement that a material risk of
future harm can satisfy the concrete-harm requirement, Spokeo cited this Court’s decision in Clapper . But
importantly, Clapper involved a suit for injunctive
relief . As this Court has recognized, a person exposed to a
risk of future harm may pursue forward-looking, injunctive relief
to prevent the harm from occurring, at least so long as the risk of
harm is sufficiently imminent and substantial. See Clapper ,
568 U. S., at 414, n. 5; Los Angeles v. Lyons , 461 U.S.
95 , 102 (1983); see also Gubala , 846 F. 3d, at
912.

															But a plaintiff must “demonstrate standing
separately for each form of relief sought.” Friends of the
Earth , 528 U. S., at 185. Therefore, a plaintiff ’s
standing to seek injunctive relief does not necessarily mean that
the plaintiff has standing to seek retrospective damages.

															TransUnion advances a persuasive argument that
in a suit for damages, the mere risk of future harm, standing
alone, cannot qualify as a concrete harm—at least unless the
exposure to the risk of future harm itself causes a separate concrete harm. Brief for Petitioner 39, n. 4; Tr. of Oral Arg.
36.[ 7 ] TransUnion contends that
if an individual is exposed to a risk of future harm, time will
eventually reveal whether the risk materializes in the form of
actual harm. If the risk of future harm materializes and the
individual suffers a concrete harm, then the harm itself, and not
the pre-existing risk, will constitute a basis for the person’s
injury and for damages. If the risk of future harm does not materialize, then the individual cannot establish a concrete harm
sufficient for standing, according to TransUnion.

															Consider an example. Suppose that a woman drives
home from work a quarter mile ahead of a reckless driver who is
dangerously swerving across lanes. The reckless driver has exposed
the woman to a risk of future harm, but the risk does not
materialize and the woman makes it home safely. As counsel for
TransUnion stated, that would ordinarily be cause for celebration,
not a lawsuit. Id., at 8. But if the reckless driver crashes
into the woman’s car, the situation would be different, and
(assuming a cause of action) the woman could sue the driver for
damages.

															The plaintiffs note that Spokeo cited
libel and slander per se as examples of cases where, as
the plaintiffs see it, a mere risk of harm suffices for a damages
claim. But as Judge Tatel explained for the D. C. Circuit,
libel and slander per se “require evidence of publication .” Owner-Operator , 879 F. 3d, at 345.
And for those torts, publication is generally presumed to cause a
harm, albeit not a readily quantifiable harm. As Spokeo noted, “the law has long permitted recovery by certain tort victims even if their harms may be difficult to prove or measure .”
578 U. S., at 341 (emphasis added). But there is a significant
difference between (i) an actual harm that has occurred but is not
readily quantifiable, as in cases of libel and slander per se , and (ii) a mere risk of future harm. By citing
libel and slander per se , Spokeo did not hold
that the mere risk of future harm, without more, suffices to
demonstrate Article III standing in a suit for damages.

															Here, the 6,332 plaintiffs did not demonstrate
that the risk of future harm materialized—that is, that the
inaccurate OFAC alerts in their internal TransUnion credit files
were ever provided to third parties or caused a denial of credit.
Nor did those plaintiffs present evidence that the class members
were independently harmed by their exposure to the risk itself—that
is, that they suffered some other injury (such as an emotional
injury) from the mere risk that their credit reports would be
provided to third-party businesses. Therefore, the 6,332
plaintiffs’ argument for standing for their damages claims based on
an asserted risk of future harm is unavailing.

															Even apart from that fundamental problem with
their argument based on the risk of future harm, the plaintiffs did
not factually establish a sufficient risk of future harm to support
Article III standing. As Judge McKeown explained in her dissent,
the risk of future harm that the 6,332 plaintiffs identified—the
risk of dissemination to third parties—was too speculative to
support Article III standing. 951 F.3d 1008, 1040 (2020); see Whitmore v. Arkansas , 495 U.S.
149 , 157 (1990). The plaintiffs claimed that TransUnion could
have divulged their misleading credit information to a third party
at any moment. But the plaintiffs did not demonstrate a sufficient
likelihood that their individual credit information would be
requested by third-party businesses and provided by TransUnion
during the relevant time period. Nor did the plaintiffs demonstrate
that there was a sufficient likelihood that TransUnion would
otherwise intentionally or accidentally release their information
to third parties. “Because no evidence in the record establishes a
serious likelihood of disclosure, we cannot simply presume a
material risk of concrete harm.” 951 F. 3d, at 1040 (opinion
of McKeown, J.).

															Moreover, the plaintiffs did not present any
evidence that the 6,332 class members even knew that there
were OFAC alerts in their internal TransUnion credit files. If
those plaintiffs prevailed in this case, many of them would first
learn that they were “injured” when they received a check
compensating them for their supposed “injury.” It is difficult to
see how a risk of future harm could supply the basis for a
plaintiff ’s standing when the plaintiff did not even know
that there was a risk of future harm.

															Finally, the plaintiffs advance one last
argument for why the 6,332 class members are similarly situated to
the other 1,853 class members and thus should have standing. The
6,332 plaintiffs note that they sought damages for the entire
46-month period permitted by the statute of limitations, whereas
the stipulation regarding dissemination covered only 7 of those
months. They argue that the credit reports of many of those 6,332
class members were likely also sent to third parties outside of the
period covered by the stipulation because all of the class members
requested copies of their reports, and consumers usually do not
request copies unless they are contemplating a transaction that
would trigger a credit check.

															That is a serious argument, but in the end, we
conclude that it fails to support standing for the 6,332 class
members. The plaintiffs had the burden to prove at trial that their
reports were actually sent to third-party businesses. The
inferences on which the argument rests are too weak to demonstrate
that the reports of any particular number of the 6,332 class
members were sent to third-party businesses. The plaintiffs’
attorneys could have attempted to show that some or all of the
6,332 class members were injured in that way. They presumably could
have sought the names and addresses of those individuals, and they
could have contacted them. In the face of the stipulation, which
pointedly failed to demonstrate dissemination for those class
members, the inferences on which the plaintiffs rely are
insufficient to support standing. Cf. Interstate Circuit,
Inc. v. United States , 306 U.S.
208 , 226 (1939) (“The production of weak evidence when strong
is available can lead only to the conclusion that the strong would
have been adverse”).

															In sum, the 6,332 class members whose internal
TransUnion credit files were not disseminated to third-party
businesses did not suffer a concrete harm. By contrast, the 1,853
class members (including Ramirez) whose credit reports were
disseminated to third-party businesses during the class period
suffered a concrete harm.

															B

															We next address the plaintiffs’ standing to
recover damages for two other claims in the complaint: the
disclosure claim and the summary-of-rights claim. Those two claims
are intertwined.

															In the disclosure claim, the plaintiffs alleged
that TransUnion breached its obligation to provide them with their
complete credit files upon request. According to the plaintiffs,
TransUnion sent the plaintiffs copies of their credit files that
omitted the OFAC information, and then in a second mailing sent the
OFAC information. See §1681g(a)(1). In the summary-of-rights claim,
the plaintiffs further asserted that TransUnion should have
included another summary of rights in that second mailing—the
mailing that included the OFAC information. See §1681g(c)(2). As
the plaintiffs note, the disclosure and summary-of-rights
requirements are designed to protect consumers’ interests in
learning of any inaccuracies in their credit files so that they can
promptly correct the files before they are disseminated to third
parties.

															In support of standing, the plaintiffs thus
contend that the TransUnion mailings were formatted incorrectly and
deprived them of their right to receive information in the format
required by statute. But the plaintiffs have not demonstrated that
the format of TransUnion’s mailings caused them a harm with a close
relationship to a harm traditionally recognized as providing a
basis for a lawsuit in American courts. See Spokeo , 578
U. S., at 341. In fact, they do not demonstrate that they
suffered any harm at all from the formatting violations. The
plaintiffs presented no evidence that, other than Ramirez, “a
single other class member so much as opened the dual
mailings,” “nor that they were confused, distressed, or relied on
the information in any way.” 951 F. 3d, at 1039, 1041 (opinion
of McKeown, J.) (emphasis added). The plaintiffs put forth no
evidence, moreover, that the plaintiffs would have tried to correct
their credit files—and thereby prevented dissemination of a
misleading report—had they been sent the information in the proper
format. Ibid. Without any evidence of harm caused by the
format of the mailings, these are “bare procedural violation[s],
divorced from any concrete harm.” Spokeo , 578 U. S., at
341. That does not suffice for Article III standing.[ 8 ]

															The plaintiffs separately argue that
TransUnion’s formatting violations created a risk of future harm.
Specifically, the plaintiffs contend that consumers who received
the information in this dual-mailing format were at risk of not
learning about the OFAC alert in their credit files. They say that
they were thus at risk of not being able to correct their credit
files before TransUnion disseminated credit reports containing the
misleading information to third-party businesses. As noted above,
the risk of future harm on its own does not support Article III
standing for the plaintiffs’ damages claim. In any event, the
plaintiffs made no effort here to explain how the formatting error
prevented them from contacting TransUnion to correct any errors
before misleading credit reports were disseminated to third-party
businesses. To reiterate, there is no evidence that “a single other
class member so much as opened the dual mailings,” “nor that they
were confused, distressed, or relied on the information in any
way.” 951 F. 3d, at 1039, 1041 (opinion of McKeown, J.).

															For its part, the United States as amicus
curiae , but not the plaintiffs, separately asserts that the
plaintiffs suffered a concrete “informational injury” under several
of this Court’s precedents. See Federal Election Comm’n v. Akins , 524 U.S.
11 (1998); Public Citizen v. Department of
Justice , 491 U.S.
440 (1989). We disagree. The plaintiffs did not allege that
they failed to receive any required information. They argued only
that they received it in the wrong format . Therefore, Akins and Public Citizen do not control here. In
addition, those cases involved denial of information subject to
public-disclosure or sunshine laws that entitle all members of the
public to certain information. This case does not involve such a
public-disclosure law. See Casillas v. Madison Avenue
Assocs., Inc. , 926 F.3d 329, 338 (CA7 2019); Trichell v. Midland Credit Mgmt., Inc. , 964 F.3d 990, 1004 (CA11 2020).
Moreover, the plaintiffs have identified no “downstream
consequences” from failing to receive the required information. Trichell , 964 F. 3d, at 1004. They did not demonstrate,
for example, that the alleged information deficit hindered their
ability to correct erroneous information before it was later sent
to third parties. An “asserted informational injury that causes no
adverse effects cannot satisfy Article III.” Ibid. *  *  *

															No concrete harm, no standing. The 1,853 class
members whose credit reports were provided to third-party
businesses suffered a concrete harm and thus have standing as to
the reasonable-procedures claim. The 6,332 class members whose
credit reports were not provided to third-party businesses did not
suffer a concrete harm and thus do not have standing as to the
reasonable-procedures claim. As for the claims pertaining to the
format of TransUnion’s mailings, none of the 8,185 class members
other than the named plaintiff Ramirez suffered a concrete
harm.

															We reverse the judgment of the U. S. Court
of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and remand the case for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion. In light of our
conclusion about Article III standing, we need not decide whether
Ramirez’s claims were typical of the claims of the class under Rule
23. On remand, the Ninth Circuit may consider in the first instance
whether class certification is appropriate in light of our
conclusion about standing.

															It is so ordered. Notes 1 The lead dissent notes that the
terminology of injury in fact became prevalent only in the latter
half of the 20th century. That is unsurprising because until the
20th century, Congress did not often afford federal “citizen
suit”-style causes of action to private plaintiffs who did not
suffer concrete harms. For example, until the 20th century,
Congress generally did not create “citizen suit” causes of action
for private plaintiffs to sue the Government. See Magill, Standing
for the Public, 95 Va. L. Rev. 1131, 1186–1187 (2009).
Moreover, until Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner , 387 U.S.
136 (1967), a plaintiff often could not bring a pre-enforcement
suit against a Government agency or official under the
Administrative Procedure Act arguing that an agency rule was
unlawful; instead, a party could raise such an argument only in an
enforcement action. Likewise, until the 20th century, Congress
rarely created “citizen suit”-style causes of action for suits
against private parties by private plaintiffs who had not suffered
a concrete harm. All told, until the 20th century, this Court had
little reason to emphasize the injury-in-fact requirement because,
until the 20th century, there were relatively few instances where
litigants without concrete injuries had a cause of action to sue in
federal court. The situation has changed markedly, especially over
the last 50 years or so. During that time, Congress has created
many novel and expansive causes of action that in turn have
required greater judicial focus on the requirements of Article III.
See, e.g., Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins , 578 U.S.
330 (2016); Summers v. Earth Island Institute , 555 U.S.
488 (2009); Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S.
555 (1992). 2 A plaintiff must show
that the injury is not only concrete but also particularized. But
if there were no concrete-harm requirement, the requirement of a
particularized injury would do little or nothing to constrain
Congress from freely creating causes of action for vast classes of unharmed plaintiffs to sue any defendants who violate any
federal law. (Congress might, for example, provide that everyone
has an individual right to clean air and can sue any defendant who
violates any air-pollution law.) That is one reason why the Court
has been careful to emphasize that concreteness and
particularization are separate requirements. See Spokeo , 578
U. S., at 339–340; see generally Bayefsky, Constitutional
Injury and Tangibility, 59 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 2285, 2298–2300,
2368 (2018). 3 The lead dissent would reject
the core standing principle that a plaintiff must always have
suffered a concrete harm, and would cast aside decades of precedent
articulating that requirement, such as Spokeo , Summers , and Lujan . Post, at 9–11 (opinion of
Thomas, J.). As we see it, the dissent’s theory would largely
outsource Article III to Congress. As we understand the dissent’s
theory, a suit seeking to enforce “general compliance with
regulatory law” would not suffice for Article III standing because
such a suit seeks to vindicate a duty owed to the whole community. Spokeo , 578 U. S., at 345 (Thomas, J., concurring)
(internal quotation marks omitted). But under the dissent’s theory,
so long as Congress frames a defendant’s obligation to comply with
regulatory law as an obligation owed to individuals , any
suit to vindicate that obligation suddenly suffices for Article
III. Suppose, for example, that Congress passes a law purporting to
give all American citizens an individual right to clean air and
clean water, as well as a cause of action to sue and recover $100
in damages from any business that violates any pollution law
anywhere in the United States. The dissent apparently would find
standing in such a case. We respectfully disagree. In our view,
unharmed plaintiffs who seek to sue under such a law are still
doing no more than enforcing general compliance with regulatory
law. And under Article III and this Court’s precedents, Congress
may not authorize plaintiffs who have not suffered concrete harms
to sue in federal court simply to enforce general compliance with
regulatory law. 4 We do not here address
the distinct question whether every class member must demonstrate
standing before a court certifies a class. See, e.g., Cordoba v. DIRECTV, LLC , 942 F.3d 1259, 1277 (CA11
2019). 5 For purposes of this
case, the parties have assumed that TransUnion violated the statute
even with respect to those plaintiffs whose OFAC alerts were never
disseminated to third-party businesses. But see Washington v. CSC Credit Servs. Inc. , 199 F.3d 263 , 267 (CA5 2000). We take no position on that
issue. 6 For the first time in
this Court, the plaintiffs also argue that TransUnion “published”
the class members’ information internally—for example, to employees
within TransUnion and to the vendors that printed and sent the
mailings that the class members received. That new argument is
forfeited. In any event, it is unavailing. Many American courts did
not traditionally recognize intra-company disclosures as actionable
publications for purposes of the tort of defamation. See, e.g., Chalkley v. Atlantic Coast Line
R. Co. , 150 Va. 301, 326–328, 143 S.E. 631, 638–639
(1928). Nor have they necessarily recognized disclosures to
printing vendors as actionable publications. See, e.g., Mack v. Delta Air Lines , Inc. , 639 Fed. Appx.
582, 586 (CA11 2016). Moreover, even the plaintiffs’ cited cases
require evidence that the defendant actually “brought an idea to
the perception of another,” Restatement of Torts §559, Comment a , p. 140 (1938), and thus generally require evidence that
the document was actually read and not merely processed, cf. Ostrowe v. Lee , 256 N.Y. 36, 38–39, 175 N.E. 505,
505–506 (1931) (Cardozo, C. J.). That evidence is lacking here. In
short, the plaintiffs’ internal publication theory circumvents a
fundamental requirement of an ordinary defamation
claim—publication—and does not bear a sufficiently “close
relationship” to the traditional defamation tort to qualify for
Article III standing. 7 For example, a
plaintiff ’s knowledge that he or she is exposed to a risk of
future physical, monetary, or reputational harm could cause its own
current emotional or psychological harm. We take no position on
whether or how such an emotional or psychological harm could
suffice for Article III purposes—for example, by analogy to the
tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress. See Reply
Brief 14; Tr. of Oral Arg. 30. The plaintiffs here have not relied
on such a theory of Article III harm. They have not claimed an
emotional distress injury from the risk that a misleading credit
report might be sent to a third-party business. Nor could they do
so, given that the 6,332 plaintiffs have not established that they
were even aware of the misleading information in the internal
credit files maintained at TransUnion. 8 The District Court and
the Court of Appeals concluded that Ramirez (in addition to the
other 8,184 class members) had standing as to those two claims. In
this Court, TransUnion has not meaningfully contested Ramirez’s
individual standing as to those two claims. We have no reason or
basis to disturb the lower courts’ conclusion on Ramirez’s
individual standing as to those two claims. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 20–297

															_________________

															TRANSUNION LLC, PETITIONER v. SERGIO L.
RAMIREZ

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 25, 2021]

															Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Breyer,
Justice Sotomayor, and Justice Kagan join, dissenting.

															TransUnion generated credit reports that
erroneously flagged many law-abiding people as potential terrorists
and drug traffickers. In doing so, TransUnion violated several
provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) that entitle
consumers to accuracy in credit-reporting procedures; to receive
information in their credit files; and to receive a summary of
their rights. Yet despite Congress’ judgment that such misdeeds
deserve redress, the majority decides that TransUnion’s actions are
so insignificant that the Constitution prohibits consumers from
vindicating their rights in federal court. The Constitution does no
such thing.

															I

															For decades, the Treasury Department’s Office
of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has compiled a list of “Specially
Designated Nationals.” The list largely includes terrorists and
drug traffickers, among other unseemly types. And, as a general
matter, Americans are barred from doing business with those listed.
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, TransUnion began to sell a
new (and more expensive) type of credit report that flagged whether
an individual’s name matched a name found on that list.

															The system TransUnion used to decide which
individuals to flag was rather rudimentary. It compared only the
consumer’s first and last name with the names on the OFAC list. If
the names were identical or similar, TransUnion included in the
consumer’s report an “OFAC ADVISOR ALERT,” explaining that the
consumer’s name matches a name on the OFAC database. See, e.g., 951 F.3d 1008, 1017, 1019 (CA9 2020) (“ ‘Cortez’
would match with ‘Cortes’ ”). TransUnion did not compare birth
dates, middle initials, Social Security numbers, or any other
available identifier routinely used to collect and verify
credit-report data. Id. , at 1019, n. 2.

															In 2005, a consumer sued. TransUnion had sold an
OFAC credit report about this consumer to a car dealership. The
report flagged her—Sandra Jean Cortez, born in May 1944—as a match
for a person on the OFAC list: Sandra Cortes Quintero, born in June
1971. TransUnion withheld this OFAC alert from the credit report
that Cortez had requested. And despite Cortez’s efforts to have the
alert removed, TransUnion kept the alert in place for years.

															After a trial, the jury returned a verdict in
the consumer’s favor on four FCRA claims, two of which are similar
to claims at issue here: (1)  TransUnion failed to follow
reasonable procedures that would ensure maximum possible accuracy,
15 U. S. C. §1681e(b); and (2)  TransUnion failed to
provide Cortez all information in her file despite her requests,
§1681g(a). See Cortez v. Trans Union, LLC , 617 F.3d
688, 696–706 (CA3 2010). The jury awarded $50,000 in actual damages
and $750,000 in punitive damages, and it also took the unusual step
of including on the verdict form a handwritten note urging
TransUnion to “completely revam[p]” its business practices. App. to
Brief for Respondent 2a. The District Court reduced the punitive
damages award to $100,000, which the Third Circuit affirmed on
appeal, stressing that TransUnion’s failure to, “at the very least,
compar[e] birth dates when they are available,” was
“reprehensible.” 617 F. 3d, at 723.

															But TransUnion “made surprisingly few changes”
after this verdict. 951 F. 3d, at 1021. It did not begin
comparing birth dates. Or middle initials. Or citizenship. In fact,
TransUnion did not compare any new piece of information.
Instead, it hedged its language saying a consumer was a
“ ‘potential match’ ” rather than saying the person was a
“ ‘match.’ ” Ibid. And instead of listing matches
for similar names, TransUnion required that the first and last
names match exactly. Unsurprisingly, these reports kept flagging
law-abiding Americans as potential terrorists and drug traffickers.
And equally unsurprising, someone else sued.

															That brings us to this case. Sergio Ramirez
visited a car dealership, offered to buy a car, and negotiated the
terms. The dealership then ran a joint credit check on Ramirez and
his wife. The salesperson said that the check revealed that Ramirez
was on “ ‘a terrorist list,’ ” so the salesperson refused
to close the deal with him. Id., at 1017.

															Ramirez requested and received a copy of his
credit report from TransUnion. The report purported to be “complete
and reliable,” but it made no mention of the OFAC alert. See App.
88–91. TransUnion later sent a separate “ ‘courtesy’ ”
letter, which informed Ramirez that his “TransUnion credit report”
had “been mailed to [him] separately.” Id. , at 92. That
letter informed Ramirez that he was a potential match to someone in
the OFAC database, but it never revealed that any OFAC information
was present on his credit report. See id. , at 92–94.
TransUnion opted not to include with this letter a description of
Ramirez’s rights under the FCRA or any information on how to
dispute the OFAC match. 951 F. 3d, at 1018. The letter merely
directed Ramirez to visit the Department of Treasury’s website or
to call or write TransUnion if Ramirez had any additional questions
or concerns.

															Ramirez sued, asserting three claims under the
FCRA: TransUnion willfully failed to follow reasonable procedures
to assure maximum possible accuracy of the information concerning
him, §1681e(b); TransUnion willfully failed to disclose to him all
the information in his credit file by withholding the true version
of his credit report, §1681g(a)(1); and TransUnion willfully failed
to provide a summary of rights when it sent him the courtesy
letter, §1681g(c)(2).

															Ramirez also sought to represent a class of
individuals who had received a similar OFAC letter from TransUnion.
“[E]veryone in the class: (1) was falsely labeled . . . a
potential OFAC match; (2) requested a copy of his or her credit
report from TransUnion; and (3) in response, received a
credit-report mailing with the OFAC alert redacted and a separate
OFAC Letter mailing with no summary of rights.” Id. , at
1022.

															The jury found in favor of the class on all
three claims. And because it also determined that TransUnion’s
misconduct was “willfu[l],” §1681n(a), the jury awarded each class
member $984.22 in statutory damages (about $8 million total) and
$6,353.08 in punitive damages (about $52 million total).

															TransUnion appealed, arguing that the class
members lacked standing. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, explaining
that “TransUnion’s reckless handling of OFAC information exposed
every class member to a real risk of harm to their concrete
privacy, reputational, and informational interests protected by the
FCRA.” Id., at 1037.[ 1 ]

															II

															A

															Article III vests “[t]he judicial Power of the
United States” in this Court “and in such inferior Courts as the
Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” §1. This
power “shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising
under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and
Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority.” §2
(emphasis added). When a federal court has jurisdiction over a case
or controversy, it has a “virtually unflagging obligation” to
exercise it. Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States , 424 U.S.
800 , 817 (1976).

															The mere filing of a complaint in federal court,
however, does not a case (or controversy) make. Article III “does
not extend the judicial power to every violation of the
constitution” or federal law “which may possibly take place.” Cohens v. Virginia , 6 Wheat. 264, 405 (1821) . Rather, the power extends only “to ‘a case in law or equity,’ in
which a right , under such law, is asserted.” Ibid. (emphasis added).

															Key to the scope of the judicial power, then, is
whether an individual asserts his or her own rights. At the time of
the founding, whether a court possessed judicial power over an
action with no showing of actual damages depended on whether the
plaintiff sought to enforce a right held privately by an individual
or a duty owed broadly to the community. See Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins , 578 U.S. 330, 344–346 (2016) (Thomas, J.,
concurring); see also Thole v. U. S. Bank
N. A. , 590 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2020) (same) (slip
op., at 1–2); 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England
2 (J. Chitty ed. 1826); 4 id., at 5. Where an individual
sought to sue someone for a violation of his private rights, such
as trespass on his land, the plaintiff needed only to allege the
violation. See Entick v. Carrington , 2 Wils. K. B.
275, 291, 95 Eng. Rep. 807, 817 (K. B. 1765). Courts typically did
not require any showing of actual damage. See Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski , 592 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2021) (slip op., at
5–6). But where an individual sued based on the violation of a duty
owed broadly to the whole community, such as the overgrazing of
public lands, courts required “not only injuria [legal
injury] but also damnum [damage].” Spokeo , 578
U. S., at 346 (Thomas, J., concurring) (citing Robert
Marys’s Case , 9 Co. Rep. 111b, 112b, 77 Eng. Rep. 895, 898–899
(K. B. 1613); brackets in original).

															This distinction mattered not only for
traditional common-law rights, but also for newly created statutory
ones. The First Congress enacted a law defining copyrights and gave
copyright holders the right to sue infringing persons in order to
recover statutory damages, even if the holder “could not show
monetary loss.” Muransky v. Godiva Chocolatier, Inc. ,
979 F.3d 917, 972 (CA11 2020) (Jordan, J., dissenting) (citing Act
of May 31, 1790, §2, 1Stat. 124–125). In the patent context, a
defendant challenged an infringement suit brought under a similar
law. Along the lines of what TransUnion argues here, the infringer
contended that “the making of a machine cannot be an offence,
because no action lies, except for actual damage, and there can be
no actual damages, or even a rule for damages, for an infringement
by making a machine.” Whittemore v. Cutter , 29 F.
Cas. 1120, 1121 (No. 17,600) (CC Mass. 1813). Riding circuit,
Justice Story rejected that theory, noting that the plaintiff could
sue in federal court merely by alleging a violation of a private
right: “[W]here the law gives an action for a particular act, the
doing of that act imports of itself a damage to the party” because
“[e]very violation of a right imports some damage.” Ibid. ;
cf. Gayler v. Wilder , 10 How. 477, 494 (1851) (patent
rights “did not exist at common law”).[ 2 ]

															The principle that the violation of an
individual right gives rise to an actionable harm was widespread at
the founding, in early American history, and in many modern cases.
See Uzuegbunam , 592 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at
5–8) (collecting cases); Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman , 455 U.S.
363 , 373 (1982) (“[T]he actual or threatened injury required by
Art. III may exist solely by virtue of statutes creating legal
rights, the invasion of which creates standing” (citing cases;
brackets and internal quotation marks omitted)). And this
understanding accords proper respect for the power of Congress and
other legislatures to define legal rights. No one could seriously
dispute, for example, that a violation of property rights is
actionable, but as a general matter, “[p]roperty rights are created
by the State.” Palazzolo v. Rhode Island , 533 U.S.
606 , 626 (2001). In light of this history, tradition, and
common practice, our test should be clear: So long as a “statute
fixes a minimum of recovery . . . , there would seem to
be no doubt of the right of one who establishes a technical ground
of action to recover this minimum sum without any specific showing
of loss.” T. Cooley, Law of Torts *271.[ 3 ] While the Court today discusses the supposed failure to
show “injury in fact,” courts for centuries held that injury in law
to a private right was enough to create a case or controversy.

															B

															Here, each class member established a
violation of his or her private rights. The jury found that
TransUnion violated three separate duties created by statute. See
App. 690. All three of those duties are owed to individuals, not to
the community writ large. Take §1681e(b), which requires a consumer
reporting agency to “follow reasonable procedures to assure maximum
possible accuracy of the information concerning the individual
about whom the report relates.” This statute creates a duty: to use
reasonable procedures to assure maximum possible accuracy. And that
duty is particularized to an individual: the subject of the report.
Section 1681g does the same. It requires an agency to “clearly and
accurately disclose” to a consumer, upon his request, “[a]ll
information in the consumer’s file at the time of the request” and
to include a written “summary of rights” with that “written
disclosure.” §§1681g(a), (c)(2). Those directives likewise create
duties: provide all information in the consumer’s file and
accompany the disclosure with a summary of rights. And these too
are owed to a single person: the consumer who requests the
information.

															Were there any doubt that consumer reporting
agencies owe these duties to specific individuals—and not to the
larger community—Congress created a cause of action providing that
“[a]ny person who willfully fails to comply” with an FCRA
requirement “with respect to any consumer is liable to that consumer .” §1681n(a) (emphasis added). If a consumer
reporting agency breaches any FCRA duty owed to a specific
consumer, then that individual (not all consumers) may sue the
agency. No one disputes that each class member possesses this cause
of action. And no one disputes that the jury found that TransUnion
violated each class member’s individual rights. The plaintiffs thus
have a sufficient injury to sue in federal court.

															C

															The Court chooses a different approach.
Rejecting this history, the majority holds that the mere violation
of a personal legal right is not —and never can be—an injury
sufficient to establish standing. What matters for the Court is
only that the “injury in fact be ‘concrete.’ ” Ante, at
8. “No concrete harm, no standing.” Ante, at 1, 27.

															That may be a pithy catchphrase, but it is worth
pausing to ask why “concrete” injury in fact should be the sole
inquiry. After all, it was not until 1970—“180 years after the
ratification of Article III”—that this Court even introduced the
“injury in fact” (as opposed to injury in law) concept of standing. Sierra v. Hallandale Beach , 996 F.3d 1110, 1117 (CA11
2021) (Newsom, J., concurring). And the concept then was not even
about constitutional standing; it concerned a statutory cause of action under the Administrative Procedure Act. See Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp , 397 U.S.
150 , 153 (1970) (explaining that the injury-in-fact requirement
“concerns, apart from the ‘case’ or ‘controversy’ test, the
question whether the interest sought to be protected by the
complainant is arguably within the zone of interests to be
protected or regulated by the statute or constitutional guarantee
in question”).

															The Court later took this statutory requirement
and began to graft it onto its constitutional standing analysis.
See, e.g., Warth v. Seldin , 422 U.S.
490 (1975). But even then, injury in fact served as an additional way to get into federal court. Article III injury
still could “exist solely by virtue of ‘statutes creating legal
rights, the invasion of which creates standing.’ ” Id. ,
at 500 (quoting Linda R. S. v. Richard D. , 410 U.S.
614 , 617, n. 3 (1973)). So the introduction of an
injury-in-fact requirement, in effect, “represented a substantial
broadening of access to the federal courts.” Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization , 426 U.S.
26 , 39 (1976). A plaintiff could now invoke a federal court’s
judicial power by establishing injury by virtue of a violated legal
right or by alleging some other type of “personal
interest.” Ibid. In the context of public rights, the Court
continued to require more than just a legal violation. In Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S.
555 (1992), for example, the Court concluded that several
environmental organizations lacked standing to challenge a
regulation about interagency communications, even though the
organizations invoked a citizen-suit provision allowing “ ‘any
person [to] commence a civil suit . . . to enjoin any
person . . . who is alleged to be in violation
of ’ ” the law. See id., at 558, 571–572; 16
U. S. C. §1540(g). Echoing the historical distinction
between duties owed to individuals and those owed to the community,
the Court explained that a plaintiff must do more than raise “a
generally available grievance about government—claiming only harm
to his and every citizen’s interest in proper application of the
Constitution and laws.” 504 U. S., at 573. “Vindicating the public interest (including the public interest in Government
observance of the Constitution and laws) is the function of
Congress and the Chief Executive.” Id., at 576. “ ‘The
province of the court,’ ” in contrast, “ ‘is, solely, to
decide on the rights of individuals.’ ” Ibid. (quoting Marbury v. Madison , 1 Cranch 137, 170 (1803)).

															The same public-rights analysis prevailed in Summers v. Earth Island Institute , 555 U.S.
488 (2009). There, a group of organizations sought to prevent
the United States Forest Service from enforcing regulations that
exempt certain projects from notice and comment. Id. , at
490. The Court, again, found that the mere violation of the law
“without some concrete interest that is affected by the
deprivation—a procedural right in vacuo —is insufficient to
create Article III standing.” Id ., at 496. But again, this
was rooted in the context of public rights: “ ‘It would exceed
Article III’s limitations if, at the behest of Congress and in the
absence of any showing of concrete injury, we were to entertain
citizen suits to vindicate the public’s nonconcrete interest
in the proper administration of the laws.’ ” Id. , at
497 (emphasis added; brackets omitted).

															In Spokeo , the Court built on this
approach. Based on a few sentences from Lujan and Summers , the Court concluded that a plaintiff does not
automatically “satisf[y] the injury-in-fact requirement whenever a
statute grants a person a statutory right and purports to authorize
that person to sue to vindicate that right.” Spokeo , 578
U. S., at 341. But the Court made clear that “Congress is well
positioned to identify intangible harms that meet minimum Article
III requirements” and explained that “the violation of a procedural
right granted by statute can be sufficient in some
circumstances to constitute injury in fact.” Id., at 341,
342 (emphasis added).

															Reconciling these statements has proved to be a
challenge. See Sierra , 996 F. 3d, at 1116–1117 (Newsom,
J., concurring) (collecting examples of inconsistent decisions).
But “[t]he historical restrictions on standing” offer considerable
guidance. Thole , 590 U. S., at ___ (Thomas, J.,
concurring) (slip op., at 1). A statute that creates a public right
plus a citizen-suit cause of action is insufficient by itself to
establish standing. See Lujan , 504 U. S., at
576.[ 4 ] A statute that creates
a private right and a cause of action, however, does gives
plaintiffs an adequate interest in vindicating their private rights
in federal court. See Thole , 590 U. S., at ___ (Thomas,
J., concurring); Spokeo , 578 U. S., at ___–___ (same);
see also Muransky , 979 F. 3d, at 970–972 (Jordan, J.,
dissenting); Huff v. TeleCheck Servs ., Inc. ,
923 F.3d 458, 469 (CA6 2019) (“Article III standing may draw a line
between private and public rights”); Bryant v. Compass
Group USA, Inc. , 958 F. 3d, 617, 624 (CA7 2020) (the Spokeo concurrence “drew a useful distinction between two
types of injuries”).

															The majority today, however, takes the road less
traveled: “[U]nder Article III, an injury in law is not an injury
in fact.” Ante, at 11; but see Webb v. Portland
Mfg. Co. , 29 F. Cas. 506, 508 (No. 17,322) (CC Me. 1838) (“The
law tolerates no farther inquiry than whether there has been the
violation of a right”). No matter if the right is personal or if
the legislature deems the right worthy of legal protection,
legislatures are constitutionally unable to offer the protection of
the federal courts for anything other than money, bodily integrity,
and anything else that this Court thinks looks close enough to
rights existing at common law. See ante , at 9. The 1970s
injury-in-fact theory has now displaced the traditional gateway
into federal courts.

															This approach is remarkable in both its novelty
and effects. Never before has this Court declared that legal injury
is inherently insufficient to support standing.[ 5 ] And never before has this Court
declared that legislatures are constitutionally precluded from
creating legal rights enforceable in federal court if those rights
deviate too far from their common-law roots. According to the
majority, courts alone have the power to sift and weigh harms to
decide whether they merit the Federal Judiciary’s attention. In the
name of protecting the separation of powers, ante , at 7, 14,
this Court has relieved the legislature of its power to create and
define rights.

															III

															Even assuming that this Court should be in the
business of second-guessing private rights, this is a rather odd
case to say that Congress went too far. TransUnion’s misconduct
here is exactly the sort of thing that has long merited legal
redress.

															As an initial matter, this Court has recognized
that the unlawful withholding of requested information causes “a
sufficiently distinct injury to provide standing to sue.” Public
Citizen v. Department of Justice , 491 U.S.
440 , 449 (1989); see also Havens Realty Corp. , 455
U. S., at 374. Here, TransUnion unlawfully withheld from each
class member the OFAC version of his or her credit report that the
class member requested. And TransUnion unlawfully failed to send a
summary of rights. The majority’s response is to contend that the
plaintiffs actually did not allege that they failed to receive any
required information; they alleged only that they received it in
the “ wrong format .” Ante , at 26.

															That reframing finds little support in the
complaint, which alleged that TransUnion “fail[ed] to include the
OFAC alerts . . . in the consumer’s own files which
consumers, as of right, may request and obtain,” and that
TransUnion did “not advise consumers that they may dispute
inaccurate OFAC alerts.” Class Action Complaint in No.
3:12–cv–00632, ECF Doc. 1 (ND Cal.), p. 5. It also finds no
footing in the record. Neither the mailed credit report nor
separate letter provide any indication that a person’s report is
marked with an OFAC alert. See, e.g., App. 88–94.

															Were there any doubt about the facts below, we
have the helpful benefit of a jury verdict. The jury found that
“Defendant TransUnion, LLC willfully fail[ed] to clearly and
accurately disclose OFAC information in the written disclosures it
sent to members of the class.” Id. , at 690. And the jury
found that “Defendant TransUnion, LLC willfully fail[ed] to provide
class members a summary of their FCRA rights with each written
disclosure made to them.” Ibid. I would not be so quick as
to recharacterize these jury findings as mere “formatting” errors. Ante , at 2, 25–26; see also U. S. Const., Amdt. 7 (“no
fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court
of the United States, than according to the rules of the common
law”).

															Moreover, to the extent this Court privileges
concrete, financial injury for standing purposes, recall
that TransUnion charged its clients extra to receive credit reports
with the OFAC designation. According to TransUnion, these special
OFAC credit reports are valuable. Even the majority must admit that
withholding something of value from another person—that is,
“monetary harm”—falls in the heartland of tangible injury in fact. Ante , at 1, 9. Recognizing as much, TransUnion admits that
its clients would have standing to sue if they, like the class
members, did not receive the OFAC credit reports they had
requested. Tr. of Oral Arg. 9.

															And then there is the standalone harm caused by
the rather extreme errors in the credit reports. The majority
(rightly) decides that having one’s identity falsely and publically
associated with terrorism and drug trafficking is itself a concrete
harm. Ante , at 16–17. For good reason. This case is a
particularly grave example of the harm this Court identified as
central to the FCRA: “curb[ing] the dissemination of false
information.” Spokeo , 578 U. S., at 342. And it aligns
closely with a “harm that has traditionally been regarded as
providing a basis for a lawsuit.” Id. , at 341. Historically,
“[o]ne who falsely, and without a privilege to do so, publishes
matter defamatory to another in such a manner as to make the
publication a libel is liable to the other,” even though “no
special harm or loss of reputation results therefrom.” Restatement
of Torts §569, p. 165 (1938).

															The question this Court has identified as key,
then, is whether a plaintiff established “a degree of risk” that is
“sufficient to meet the concreteness requirement.” Spokeo, 578 U. S., at 343. Here, in a 7-month period, it is undisputed
that nearly 25 percent of the class had false OFAC-flags sent to
potential creditors. Twenty-five percent over just a 7-month period
seems, to me, “a degree of risk sufficient to meet the concreteness
requirement.” Ibid. If 25 percent is insufficient, then,
pray tell, what percentage is?

															The majority deflects this line of analysis by
all but eliminating the risk-of-harm analysis. According to the
majority, an elevated risk of harm simply shows that a concrete
harm is imminent and thus may support only a claim for
injunctive relief. Ante , at 20, 26. But this reworking of Spokeo fails for two reasons. First, it ignores what Spokeo said: “[Our opinion] does not mean . . .
that the risk of real harm cannot satisfy the requirement of
concreteness.” Spokeo , 578 U. S., at 341. Second, it
ignores what Spokeo did. The Court in Spokeo remanded
the respondent’s claims for statutory damages to the Ninth Circuit
to consider “whether the . . . violations alleged in this
case entail a degree of risk sufficient to meet the concreteness
requirement.” Id., at 342–343. The theory that risk of harm
matters only for injunctive relief is thus squarely foreclosed by Spokeo itself.

															But even if risk of harm is out, the Ninth
Circuit indicated that every class member may have had an OFAC
alert disclosed. According to the court below, TransUnion not only
published this information to creditors for a quarter of the class
but also “communicated about the database information and OFAC
matches” with a third party. 951 F. 3d, at 1026; cf. Cortez , 617 F. 3d, at 711 (TransUnion cannot avoid FCRA
liability “by simply contracting with a third party to store and
maintain information”). Respondent adds to this by pointing out
that TransUnion published this information to vendors that printed
and sent the mailings. See Brief for Respondent 16; see also App.
161 (deposition testimony explaining that “a printed credit report
. . . would have been sent through our print vendor
through the mail and delivered to the consumer requesting the file
disclosure); id., at 545 (trial testimony identifying three
different print-vendor companies that worked with TransUnion during
the relevant time period). In the historical context of libel,
publication to even a single other party could be enough to give
rise to suit. This was true, even where the third party was a
telegraph company,[ 6 ] an
attorney,[ 7 ] or a stenographer
who merely writes the information down.[ 8 ] Surely with a harm so closely paralleling a common-law
harm, this is an instance where a plaintiff “need not allege any
additional harm beyond the one Congress has identified.” Spokeo , 578 U. S., at 342 (emphasis deleted).

															But even setting aside everything already
mentioned—the Constitution’s text, history, precedent, financial
harm, libel, the risk of publication, and actual disclosure to a
third party—one need only tap into common sense to know that
receiving a letter identifying you as a potential drug trafficker
or terrorist is harmful. All the more so when the information comes
in the context of a credit report, the entire purpose of which is
to demonstrate that a person can be trusted.

															And if this sort of confusing and frustrating
communication is insufficient to establish a real injury, one
wonders what could rise to that level. If, instead of falsely
identifying Ramirez as a potential drug trafficker or terrorist,
TransUnion had flagged him as a “potential” child molester, would
that alone still be insufficient to open the courthouse doors? What
about falsely labeling a person a racist? Including a slur on the
report? Or what about openly reducing a person’s credit score by
several points because of his race? If none of these constitutes an
injury in fact, how can that possibly square with our past cases
indicating that the inability to “observe an animal species, even
for purely esthetic purposes, . . . undeniably” is? Lujan , 504 U. S., at 562; see also Friends of the
Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC),
Inc. , 528 U.S.
167 , 183 (2000) (“plaintiffs adequately allege injury in fact
when they aver that they use the affected area and are persons for
whom the aesthetic and recreational values of the area will be
lessened” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Summers , 555
U. S., at 494 (“[I]f . . . harm in fact affects the
recreational or even the mere esthetic interests of the plaintiff,
that will suffice”). Had the class members claimed an aesthetic
interest in viewing an accurate report, would this case have come
out differently?

															And if some of these examples do cause
sufficiently “concrete” and “real”—though “intangible”—harms, how
do we go about picking and choosing which ones do and which
do not? I see no way to engage in this “inescapably value-laden”
inquiry without it “devolv[ing] into [pure] policy judgment.” Sierra , 996 F. 3d, at 1129 (Newsom, J., concurring).
Weighing the harms caused by specific facts and choosing remedies
seems to me like a much better fit for legislatures and juries than
for this Court.

															Finally, it is not just the harm that is
reminiscent of a constitutional case or controversy. So too is the
remedy. Although statutory damages are not necessarily a proxy for
unjust enrichment, they have a similar flavor in this case.
TransUnion violated consumers’ rights in order to create and sell a
product to its clients. Reckless handling of consumer information
and bungled responses to requests for information served a means to
an end. And the end was financial gain. “TransUnion could not
confirm that a single OFAC alert sold to its customers was
accurate.” 951 F. 3d, at 1021, n. 4. Yet thanks to this
Court, it may well be in a position to keep much of its ill-gotten
gains. [ 9 ]

															*  *  *

															Ultimately, the majority seems to pose to the
reader a single rhetorical question: Who could possibly think that
a person is harmed when he requests and is sent an incomplete
credit report, or is sent a suspicious notice informing him that he
may be a designated drug trafficker or terrorist, or is not sent anything informing him of how to remove this inaccurate red
flag? The answer is, of course, legion: Congress, the President,
the jury, the District Court, the Ninth Circuit, and four Members
of this Court.

															I respectfully dissent. Notes 1 TransUnion also contends
that Ramirez’s claims and defenses are not typical of those of the
class. The Court declines to reach that question because its
jurisdictional holding is dispositive. Ante , at 27. In my
view, the District Court did not abuse its discretion in certifying
the class given the similarities among the claims and defenses at
issue. 2 The “public rights”
terminology has been used to refer to two different concepts. In
one context, these rights are “ ‘take[n] from the
public’ ”—like the right to make, use, or sell an
invention—and “ ‘bestow[ed] . . . upon the’ ”
individual, like a “decision to grant a public franchise.” Oil
States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group,
LLC , 584 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2018) (slip op., at 6–7).
Disputes with the Government over these rights generally can be
resolved “outside of an Article III court.” Id., at ___–___
(slip op., at 9–10). Here, in contrast, the term “public rights”
refers to duties owed collectively to the community. For example,
Congress owes a duty to all Americans to legislate within its
constitutional confines. But not every single American can sue over
Congress’ failure to do so. Only individuals who, at a minimum,
establish harm beyond the mere violation of that constitutional
duty can sue. Cf. Fairchild v. Hughes , 258 U.S.
126 , 129–130 (1922) (“Plaintiff has only the right, possessed
by every citizen, to require that the Government be administered
according to law and that the public moneys be not wasted.
Obviously this general right does not entitle a private citizen to
institute in the federal courts a suit to secure by indirection a
determination whether a statute, if passed, or a constitutional
amendment, about to be adopted, will be valid”). 3 Etymology is also a
helpful guide. The word “injury” stems from the Latin
“ injuria ,” which combines “in” (expressing negation) and
“jus” (right, law, justice). See Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
529 (1988). 4 But see Caminker,
Comment, The Constitutionality of Qui Tam Actions, 99
Yale L. J. 341, 342, n. 3 (1989) (“Six statutes [enacted
by the First Congress] imposed penalties and/or forfeitures for
conduct injurious to the general public and expressly authorized
suits by private informers, with the recovery being shared between
the informer and the United States”); McCulloch v. Maryland , 4 Wheat. 316, 317, 321–322 (1819) (reviewing “an
action of debt brought by the defendant in error . . .
who sued as well for himself as for the State of Maryland
. . . to recover certain penalties”). 5 See, e.g., Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S.
555 , 578 (1992) (“Nothing in this contradicts the principle
that the injury required by Art. III may exist solely by
virtue of ‘statutes creating legal rights, the invasion of which
creates standing” (internal quotation marks, brackets, and ellipsis
omitted)); Warth v. Seldin , 422
U.S. 490 , 514 (1975) (“Congress may create a statutory right or
entitlement the alleged deprivation of which can confer standing to
sue even where the plaintiff would have suffered no judicially
cognizable injury in the absence of statute”); Linda R. S. v. Richard D ., 410 U.S.
614 , 617, n. 3 (1973) (“Congress may enact statutes
creating legal rights, the invasion of which creates standing, even
though no injury would exist without the statute”). 6 Munson v. Lathrop , 96 Wis. 386, 389, 71 N.W. 596, 597 (1897) (“The
writing of the message, and the delivery of it by him to the
[telegraph] company for transmission, as mentioned, was a
publication of the same”). 7 Hedgepeth v. Coleman , 183 N. C. 309, 312–313, 111 S.E. 517, 519
(1922) (“[I]t has been held that the publication was sufficient
where the defendant had communicated the defamatory matter to the
plaintiff ’s agent, or attorney; or had read it to a friend
before posting it to the plaintiff; or had procured it to be
copied, or sealed in the form of a letter addressed to the
plaintiff and left in the house of a neighbor by whom it was read;
or had caused it to be delivered to and read by a member of the
plaintiff ’s family”). 8 Rickbeil v. Grafton Deaconess Hospital , 74 N. D. 525, 542 (1946)
(“We hold that the dictating of this letter by the manager to the
stenographer and her transcription of her notes into the written
instrument constitutes publication within the purview of the law of
libel: whether the relationship be that of master and servant or of
coemployees of a corporation”); see also Larimore v. Blaylock , 259 Va. 568, 573, 528 S.E.2d 119, 122 (2000)
(rejecting an argument of “absolute protection of the
‘intracorporate immunity doctrine’ ” for defamatory
statements); but see Swindle v. State , 10 Tenn. 581,
582 (1831) (“ ‘A personal libel is published when it arrives
to the person against whom it is written , pursuant to the
design of the author, or is made known to any other person, by any
means to which the dissent of the author is not necessarily
implied’ ” (emphasis added)). 9 Today’s decision might
actually be a pyrrhic victory for TransUnion. The Court does not
prohibit Congress from creating statutory rights for consumers; it
simply holds that federal courts lack jurisdiction to hear some of
these cases. That combination may leave state courts—which “are not
bound by the limitations of a case or controversy or other federal
rules of justiciability even when they address issues of federal
law,” ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish , 490
U.S. 605 , 617 (1989)—as the sole forum for such cases, with
defendants unable to seek removal to federal court. See also
Bennett, The Paradox of Exclusive State-Court Jurisdiction Over
Federal Claims, 105 Minn. L. Rev. 1211 (2021). By declaring
that federal courts lack jurisdiction, the Court has thus ensured
that state courts will exercise exclusive jurisdiction over these
sorts of class actions. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 20–297

															_________________

															TRANSUNION LLC, PETITIONER v. SERGIO L.
RAMIREZ

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the ninth circuit

															[June 25, 2021]

															Justice Kagan, with whom Justice Breyer and
Justice Sotomayor join, dissenting.

															The familiar story of Article III standing
depicts the doctrine as an integral aspect of judicial restraint.
The case-or-controversy requirement of Article III, the account
runs, is “built on a single basic idea—the idea of separation of
powers.” Allen v. Wright , 468
U.S. 737 , 752 (1984). Rigorous standing rules help safeguard
that separation by keeping the courts away from issues “more
appropriately addressed in the representative branches.” Id. , at 751 . In so doing, those rules prevent courts
from overstepping their “proper—and properly limited—role” in “a
democratic society.” Warth v. Seldin , 422 U.S.
490 , 498 (1975); see ante , at 7–8 (Thomas, J.,
dissenting).

															After today’s decision, that story needs a
rewrite. The Court here transforms standing law from a doctrine of
judicial modesty into a tool of judicial aggrandizement. It holds,
for the first time, that a specific class of plaintiffs whom
Congress allowed to bring a lawsuit cannot do so under Article III.
I join Justice Thomas’s dissent, which explains why the majority’s
decision is so mistaken. As he recounts, our Article III precedents
teach that Congress has broad “power to create and define rights.” Ante , at 13; see Spokeo , Inc. v. Robins , 578 U.S. 330, 341 (2016); Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S.
555 , 578 (1992); Warth , 422 U. S., at 500. And
Congress may protect those rights by authorizing suits not only for
past harms but also for the material risk of future ones. See Spokeo , 578 U. S., at 341–343; ante , at 15
(Thomas, J., dissenting). Under those precedents, this case should
be easy. In the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Congress determined to
protect consumers’ reputations from inaccurate credit reporting.
TransUnion willfully violated that statute’s provisions by
preparing credit files that falsely called the plaintiffs potential
terrorists, and by obscuring that fact when the plaintiffs
requested copies of their files. To say, as the majority does, that
the resulting injuries did not “ ‘exist’ in the real world” is
to inhabit a world I don’t know. Ante , at 10. And to make
that claim in the face of Congress’s contrary judgment is to exceed
the judiciary’s “proper—and properly limited—role.” Warth ,
422 U. S., at 498; see ante , at 12–13 (Thomas, J.,
dissenting).

															I add a few words about the majority’s view of
the risks of harm to the plaintiffs. In addressing the claim that
TransUnion failed to maintain accurate credit files, the majority
argues that the “risk of dissemination” of the plaintiffs’ credit
information to third parties is “too speculative.” Ante , at
22. But why is it so speculative that a company in the business of
selling credit reports to third parties will in fact sell a credit
report to a third party? See also ante , at 15 (Thomas, J.,
dissenting) (noting that “nearly 25% of the class” already had
false reports “sent to potential creditors”). And in addressing the
claims of faulty disclosure to the plaintiffs, the majority makes a
set of curious assumptions. According to the majority, people who
specifically request a copy of their credit report may not even
“ open[ ] ” the envelope. Ante , at 25
(emphasis in original). And people who receive multiple opaque
mailings are not likely to be “confused.” Ibid. ; but see Niz-Chavez v. Garland , 593 U. S. ___, ___ (2021)
(slip op., at 14) (explaining that a “series of letters,” “each
containing a new morsel of vital information,” is likely to perplex
recipients). And finally, people who learn that their credit files
label them potential terrorists would not “have tried to correct”
the error. Ante , at 25. Rather than accept those
suppositions, I sign up with Justice Thomas: “[O]ne need only tap
into common sense to know that receiving a letter identifying you
as a potential drug trafficker or terrorist is harmful.” Ante , at 17.

															I differ with Justice Thomas on just one matter,
unlikely to make much difference in practice. In his view, any
“violation of an individual right” created by Congress gives rise
to Article III standing. Ante , at 7. But in Spokeo ,
this Court held that “Article III requires a concrete injury even
in the context of a statutory violation.” 578 U. S., at 341. I
continue to adhere to that view, but think it should lead to the
same result as Justice Thomas’s approach in all but highly unusual
cases. As Spokeo recognized, “Congress is well positioned to
identify [both tangible and] intangible harms” meeting Article III
standards. Ibid. Article III requires for concreteness only
a “real harm” (that is, a harm that “actually exist[s]”) or a “risk
of real harm.” Ibid. And as today’s decision definitively
proves, Congress is better suited than courts to determine when
something causes a harm or risk of harm in the real world. For that
reason, courts should give deference to those congressional
judgments. Overriding an authorization to sue is appropriate when
but only when Congress could not reasonably have thought that a
suit will contribute to compensating or preventing the harm at
issue. Subject to that qualification, I join Justice Thomas’s
dissent in full.

Summary: The Supreme Court ruled that only 1,853 class members who had their misleading credit reports provided to third-party businesses suffered concrete reputational harm and have standing to sue TransUnion. The remaining 6,332 class members whose internal credit files were not provided to third parties during the relevant time period lacked concrete harm and thus standing to sue. On two other claims regarding formatting defects in TransUnion's mailings, only the named plaintiff Sergio Ramirez had standing as the other class members did not demonstrate concrete harm. The Court of Appeals approved a class damages award of about $40 million, but the Supreme Court's ruling limited standing and reduced the number of plaintiffs with valid claims.