A United States district court in Kentucky recently granted defendants’ motion to dismiss a case arising under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) for lack of personal jurisdiction.

As discussed here and here, D.K. et al. v. United Behavioral Health et al. is a case that has been carefully watched in the health benefits space for its impact on what health plan administrators must include in adverse benefit determination letters. In D.K., the Tenth Circuit held health plan administrators cannot rely…

On August 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld a trial court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of a debt buyer holding that claim preclusion barred the plaintiff’s claims brought under the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) and Utah’s Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act (UCSPA).

In our latest episode of The Consumer Finance Podcast, Chris Willis and his colleagues Stefanie Jackman, Joe Reilly, and Jonathan Floyd discuss the CFPB’s advisory opinion related to collection of time-barred debt. The discussion includes a look at the historical events that led up to this opinion, whether or not an FDCPA-covered debt collector can sue to collect a time-barred debt, how this opinion relates to state law analogs, and key takeaways for the industry.

On July 31, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve) issued its July Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices, which addressed changes in the standards and terms on, and demand for, bank loans to businesses and households in the second quarter of 2023. Banks reported that lending standards are currently on the tighter end of the range for all loan categories. Specifically, standards tightened for all consumer loan categories and demand weakened for auto and other consumer loans, while it remained basically unchanged for credit card loans. Looking forward, banks reported expecting to tighten standards further on all loan categories citing an uncertain economic outlook and expected deterioration in collateral values and the credit quality of loans.

The Eleventh Circuit has now joined seven other circuits in holding that receipt of unwanted text messages constitutes concrete injury for standing. On July 24, the Eleventh Circuit issued an en banc decision in Drazen v. Pinto, holding that a plaintiff who received a single, unwanted text message has standing to sue under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The court departed from its earlier ruling in Salcedo v. Hanna, which held that a single unsolicited text message is but a “brief, inconsequential annoyance [] categorically distinct from those kinds of real but intangible harms” that confer Article III standing.

As discussed here, on April 26, the Texas Bankers Association, the American Bankers Association (ABA), and Rio Bank, McAllen, Texas (Rio Bank) filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas challenging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB or Bureau) final rule under § 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Final Rule). As discussed here, § 1071 amended the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) to impose significant data collection and reporting requirements on small business creditors. The plaintiffs’ complaint relied heavily on the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Community Financial Services Association (CFSA) v CFPB, finding the CFPB’s funding structure unconstitutional and, therefore, rules promulgated by the Bureau invalid. The CFPB’s appeal of the Fifth Circuit’s decision is currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court (discussed here).

In April, we discussed how Colorado’s state supreme court issued its highly anticipated decision confirming a borrower’s bankruptcy discharge does not accelerate secured installment debt or trigger the final statute of limitations period to recover the debt. Now, Washington’s high court has rendered its decisions on the topic, joining the handful of states to address this trending issue.