California Appellate Court Rules Font Size Violation Alone Sufficient For Rosenthal Act Standing

On September 9, a division of the California Courts of Appeal reversed a summary judgment in favor of a debt collector, holding that a violation of the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (the Rosenthal Act) based on the font size of the company’s debt collection notice is sufficient to confer standing for statutory damages, even absent actual injury.

The case involved a collection letter in which the mandatory consumer rights disclosure appeared in eight-point type — smaller than the font used to list the debt itself. The plaintiff alleged this violated the Consumer Collection Notice law’s type-size requirements and, by extension, the Rosenthal Act. The trial court had granted summary judgement for the defendant, reasoning that damages require “an underlying injury, harm, or loss and not simply… a violation.”

The appellate court disagreed, finding that the legislature “has deemed a violation to be an injury sufficient to confer standing — independent of actual damages[.]” The court explained that the state legislature intended the relevant section remedies of the Rosenthal Act to have the same meaning as they do under the FDCPA: to “deter violations,” even if the defendant’s conduct “imposed no cost on the plaintiff.”