The Center welcomes the decision by the First District Court of Appeal in Kashanian v. National Enterprise Systems, Inc., which empathically affirms that standing under California consumer protection laws arises from a defendant’s violation of those laws, not from a separate injury to the plaintiff. The ruling marks a signal victory for consumers.
The Kashanian case involves a consumer class action brought under California’s Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Although the defendant failed to comply with statutory requirements, the trial court determined – wrongly – that civil liability could not be imposed without a provable concrete harm, injury, or loss to the plaintiff. The Court of Appeal forcefully rejected this approach, overturning the trial court and holding that “nothing in the statute suggests that any injury beyond the noncompliance is required to impose civil liability.”
Citing Chai v. Velocity Investments, LLC—another successful appeal in which the Center filed an amicus brief—the Kashanian court held that “the Legislature has deemed a violation to be an injury sufficient to confer standing.” Crucially, the court declined defendant’s “invitation to graft the federal standing requirements articulated in [A]rticle III of the U.S. Constitution . . . onto this action,” emphasizing that “California courts are not constrained by [A]rticle III standing.”
“This decision is an important victory in the effort to keep California courthouse doors open to all,” said Ted Mermin, director of the UC Berkeley Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice, which authored a friend-of-the-court brief in the case. “At a moment when due process and the rule of law are increasingly threatened in this country, a decision that firmly upholds the principle of access to justice provides both comfort and hope.”
Together with the Sixth District’s decision in Chai, the First District’s Kashanian decision provides a powerful counterpoint to the Fifth District’s dubious and detrimental opinion in Limón v. Circle K Stores Inc. That 2022 decision abruptly announced that Article III’s injury-in-fact requirement has always applied in California state court, notwithstanding decades of case law and express legislative direction to the contrary. Because all California courts of appeal have equal authority in trial courts throughout the state, Chai and Kashanian now provide superior courts with appellate decisions supporting the principle that Article III standing requirements do not apply in California state court. These decisions help to restore the legal landscape that existed for decades before Limon’s misguided departure.
The Kashanian decision comes at a crucial time when federal agencies face enforcement constraints and federal courts increasingly limit consumers’ access to justice. Statutory damages deter violations and punish wrongdoers even when the cost of a defendant’s misconduct is difficult to quantify. The decision will help ensure that California courts remain fully available to consumers who suffer statutory violations, preserving the Legislature’s intent to provide meaningful remedies and to keep the courthouse doors open to all.