On March 22, 2018, the Governor of West Virginia signed into law HB 3143, which amends select provisions of the West Virginia Consumer Credit Protection Act (WVCCPA). First, the Bill amends section 46A-4-101 to clarify that the licensing provisions of the WVCCPA do not apply to any “collection agency” as defined by the Collection Agency
The District Court for the Southern District of Texas recently awarded a defendant summary judgment because the defendant’s call records directly contradicted the plaintiff’s vague recollection of events. The Plaintiff in Young v. Medicredit Inc., No. H-17-3701, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71020 (S.D. Tex. Apr. 26, 2019), asserted claims against Defendant Medicredit Inc. (“Medicredit”)
In a recently issued opinion, a federal district court judge in the Eastern District of Wisconsin found that a debt collector’s use of Seventh Circuit-approved interest and fees safe harbor language in a collection letter could constitute a false and misleading representation under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act where the plaintiff alleged that
Addressing claims based on parsing language in a collection letter, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal under Rule 12’s plausibility standard of claims asserted under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, finding the alleged representations were not misleading as a matter of law.
In Klein v. Credico Inc., the debtor alleged that
In a move that some consumer advocates worry will erode the notoriously stringent requirements of the California Consumer Privacy Act, the California state legislature’s Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee held a hearing this week where it advanced five different bills that amend and potentially weaken the statute. The bills advanced include the following:
The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida recently relied on an Eleventh Circuit prohibition against “shotgun pleadings” to dismiss with prejudice a pro se plaintiff’s claims. In Dressler v. United States Department of Education, plaintiff Sandra Dressler brought a ten-count complaint against nine defendants. She alleged violations of the Fair Credit
Earlier this week, the Fourth Circuit struck down a provision of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) that exempted government-backed debts from the statute’s prohibition on automated calls to cellular telephones. According to the Court in American Association of Political Consultants, Inc., et al v. FCC, the debt-collection exemption does not pass strict scrutiny
A federal court in Wisconsin recently granted a motion for attorneys’ fees in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case based on the defendant’s “aggressive litigation tactics.” The case is Michael J. Broome v. Kohn Law Firm, S.C., et al.
Consumer plaintiff Michael Broome claimed the defendants violated the FDCPA by filing a debt-collection lawsuit
Background
In Varela v. Lamps Plus, Inc.,
The Eastern District of Pennsylvania concluded that an admitted professional litigant stated a claim under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act when he received the defendant’s telemarketing calls on his cell phone. The determinative factor was lack of allegations and evidence that the plaintiff used the phone for the sole purpose of bringing TCPA lawsuits. A