In a concise opinion, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently held that a dunning letter did not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act requirement to state “the amount of the debt,” despite omitting safe harbor language recommended by the Seventh Circuit.
In Tena
It is commonplace today for businesses to include binding arbitration provisions in customer agreements. It is also common for these arbitration agreements to have a “delegation provision,” where the parties agree to delegate to the arbitrator – not the court – questions of whether the arbitration agreement applies to a dispute. But even when the
On January 3, 49 state attorneys general announced a settlement with Career Education Corporation (“CEC”), a for-profit education company, to resolve claims that CEC engaged in unfair and deceptive practices. The settlement requires CEC to forgo any collection efforts against $493.7 million in outstanding loan debt held by nearly 180,000 former students. It also imposes
In the home mortgage industry, loans insured by the Fair Housing Authority (“FHA”) come with statutory prerequisites that are embedded in the loan contracts and that must be followed prior to foreclosure. One such obligation put forth by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) is the “face-to-face meeting” requirement. This meeting, however, is
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently denied a plaintiff’s motion for class certification on a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act claim, ruling that he had failed to establish that he was an adequate class representative. This decision illustrates that a plaintiff must meet all factors to certify a class
What is a sufficient disclaimer regarding the statute of limitations on time-barred debt? Courts across the country continue to wrestle with this question in a variety of contexts, including oral disclosures made to consumers over the phone. In Jones v. Synergetic Communications, Inc., the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of
The Northern District of California recently dismissed a putative class action, filed under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, challenging an employer’s inclusion of state-specific information in its FCRA consent and disclosure form. The Court held that the plaintiff had no standing to assert her FCRA claim because she failed to plead a concrete injury-in-fact.
In
On November 21, in Sweely Holdings LLC v. SunTrust Bank et al., the Supreme Court of Virginia issued an opinion that is beneficial to the mortgage industry in Virginia because it upheld a bank’s right to foreclose, even if it could have pursued other options under a forbearance agreement. In doing so, the Court
On November 16, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a memorandum opinion in Crystal Davis v. Credit Bureau of the South denying counsel’s statutory attorney’s fees for a successful Fair Debt Collection Practices Act claim. The opinion—which is well worth the read—can be accessed here.
The appellant consumer, Crystal
Last month, Troutman Sanders reported on the proposed TRACED Act which would instruct the Federal Communications Commission to engage in rulemaking to protect consumers from receiving unwanted calls and text messages from unauthenticated phone numbers. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai tweeted his approval for the bill, but the FCC is not waiting on Congress to fight