On November 1, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals declined to elevate form over substance, affirming a ruling from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissing a consumer’s FDCPA claim that a law firm’s collection…
Section 1692e(11) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act forbids: the failure to disclose in the initial written communication with the consumer and, in addition, if the initial communication with the consumer is oral, in that initial oral communication, that…
A false statement by a debt collector must be “material” to be actionable under the FDCPA. This principle has been recognized by the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Circuits. On…
In a decision that cries out for legislative action the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has ruled that attorneys who collect consumer debts in the Seventh Circuit may not rely upon decisions of the Seventh Circuit…
Earlier this month, Justice Gorsuch’s opinion in Henson v. Santander Consumer USA, Inc. served as a reminder that courts should refrain from reading absent terms into clear and unambiguous statutory language. On June 22, the Second Circuit followed this directive…
New Jersey’s federal district court has provided a measure of comfort under circumstances that will be familiar to most debt collectors. In Gebhardt v. LJ Ross Assocs., the plaintiff’s attorney sent the defendant a certified letter stating that the plaintiff…
In his debut opinion, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch wrote for a unanimous United States Supreme Court, holding that banks and financial companies that purchase and collect defaulted debt are not “debt collectors” under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. At…
It is rare for an enforcement action against debt collectors to go to a contested trial, and a jury verdict is even rarer. On June 7, 2017, a Harris County, Texas jury awarded over $25 million in in civil penalties…
A divided Supreme Court has ruled in Midland Funding, LLC v. Johnson that filing a time-barred proof of claim in bankruptcy does not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The opinion by Justice Breyer was joined by four conservative…
Last month, the CFPB published its annual report on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692, et seq. As with its former reports, the CFPB included a section about consumer complaints. In his introduction to the report,…