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On November 20, 2025, the Illinois Supreme Court issued a decision that may help defendants establish that Illinois State Court plaintiffs lack standing when they have not suffered actual harm. In Fausett v. Walgreen Company d/b/a Walgreens, 2025 IL 131444 (2025), the court substantially limited plaintiffs’ ability to satisfy standing in Illinois state courts when those same plaintiffs are unable to establish Article III standing in federal court.

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The Fausett decision could allow Illinois state court defendants to mirror the progress that defendants have achieved in federal court standing jurisprudence under certain statutory regimes. For at least the past two decades, the plaintiffs’ class action bar has found considerable success in aggregating the claims of plaintiffs who have been subjected to a federal or state statutory violation that provides for recovery of a relatively small amount of statutory damages for each violation. But with its seminal decision in Spokeo v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016), the United States Supreme Court placed substantial limits on plaintiffs’ ability to assert these claims in federal court, holding that plaintiffs cannot establish Article III standing unless they have suffered a concrete, particularized harm. The federal courts’ Article III standing limitations have led to many plaintiffs litigating these claims in state courts, which often do not impose comparable standing limitations.

Now, the Illinois Supreme Court has taken a step toward limiting the plaintiffs’ ability to establish standing. Fausett involved a claim that Walgreens violated the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (‘FACTA’) by revealing on a transaction receipt more than the last five digits of Fausett’s prepaid debit card number. The Circuit Court certified a class of plaintiffs, and Walgreens appealed class certification under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 306(a)(8), arguing that Fausett lacked standing because she was not injured by the FACTA violation. The Illinois Appellate Court ruled that Fausett could establish standing under Illinois law, which does not impose the same strict Article III standing requirements that apply in federal court. The Illinois Supreme Court granted Walgreens’ petition for leave to appeal.

Although the court emphasized that standing in Illinois state court is distinct from Article III standing requirements, the court delineated two separate standing analyses that apply to claims filed in Illinois state court: “statutory standing” and “common law standing.” As the court explained, for statutory standing, the statute must specify who can sue and under what conditions, and the plaintiff must meet those statutory requirements. For common law standing, the plaintiff must show (1) a distinct and palpable injury, which is (2) fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct and (3) substantially likely to be prevented or redressed by court action.

On the issue of statutory standing, the court held that Fausett could not establish standing because FACTA’s enforcement provisions (in the Fair Credit Reporting Act (‘FCRA’)) did not expressly state who could bring a cause of action for damages. The relevant provision of FCRA is as follows:

Any person who willfully fails to comply with any requirement imposed under this subchapter with respect to any consumer is liable to that consumer in an amount equal to the sum of—

(1)(A) any actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or damages of not less than $100 and not more than $1,000; or

(B) in the case of liability of a natural person for obtaining a consumer report under false pretenses or knowingly without a permissible purpose, actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or $1,000, whichever is greater;

(2) such amount of punitive damages as the court may allow; and

(3) in the case of any successful action to enforce any liability under this section, the costs of the action together with reasonable attorney’s fees as determined by the court.

The Court distinguished this statutory regime from its interpretation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (‘BIPA’), which the court interpreted as allowing for claims by uninjured parties in Rosenbach v. Six Flags, 2019 IL 123186. The court found BIPA distinguishable from FCRA because BIPA expressly allows “any person aggrieved by a violation” of BIPA to “have a right of action.” 740 ILCS 14/20. No similar action-granting language appears in FCRA; thus, the Court ruled that Fausett’s “FACTA claim does not implicate statutory standing principles.”

Moving to “common law standing,” the court found that Fausett lacked standing because she had no palpable injury. For example, there was no identity theft or loss of funds from her debit card. Without either statutory or common law standing, the court concluded that class certification was improper and that the plaintiffs’ claims should be dismissed on remand.

Fausett potentially opens new lines of attack against plaintiffs attempting to aggregate claims under certain statutory regimes. In short, a plaintiff asserting a statutory claim likely will have to either (a) establish Article III standing requirements to demonstrate standing in federal court or (b) proceed in Illinois state court by identifying an actual injury or statutory language expressly identifying the individuals who may bring suit under the statute. We expect Fausett will result in new dismissal arguments in Illinois against plaintiffs who have not suffered a concrete injury and, thus, cannot meet Article III standing requirements to proceed in federal court. Prior to Fausett, it appeared that there was substantial daylight between federal Article III standing requirements and Illinois standing requirements. At a minimum, the Fausett decision should begin to decrease that daylight.

Illinois Supreme Court Places Standing Limits on Plaintiffs’ Ability to Assert Statutory Claims in Illinois State Court

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