In Golden v. Benjamin, Judge Schroeder, of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, denied Higgins Benjamin, PLCC’s (“Higgins”) motion to dismiss a class action claim brought by Mark and Geneva Golden under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. In the Complaint, Plaintiffs alleged an FDCPA claim for failure
A group of state attorneys general, led by New York A.G. Letitia James, are attempting to stop the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) from implementing its new True Lender Rule that is now in effect. The state attorneys general allege that by implementing the Rule, the OCC is once again fostering
On December 15, 2020, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decided four cases which all dealt with the issue of standing within the context of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”). With these holdings, the Seventh Circuit stated that simply alleging a procedural violation, confusion, or annoyance under the FDCPA does not constitute an
In a new decision slated for publication, the Sixth Circuit weighed in on an issue under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA): whether a “benign language” exception exists to a flat prohibition of substantive information appearing on an envelope containing a letter from a debt collector. The Sixth Circuit took a strict reading of
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the actions of a debt collector are not necessarily imputed to a debt buyer. This holding reversed the Western District of Arkansas District Court, which held that the actions of the debt collector are necessarily imputed to the debt buyer. The full opinion of Reygadas v. DNF
In Ramsey v. Receivables Performance Mgmt., LLC, Judge McFarland, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, granted partial summary judgment for Phillip Ramsey, Plaintiff – holding that Receivables Performance Management, LLC and Howard George (Chief Executive Officer, RPM), Defendants, violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by calling Plaintiff two
The Supreme Court granted cert in Ramirez v. TransUnion LLC to consider “whether either Article III or Rule 23 permits a damages class action where the vast majority of the class suffered no actual injury, let alone an injury anything like what the class representative suffered.” This development is a welcomed opportunity for clarity in
On December 4, Judge William M. Conley, in the Western District of Wisconsin, granted a defendant debt collector’s motion to dismiss without prejudice. The Court determined that while the plaintiff Mikayla Fellenz has standing to sue under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), her claim that the identification of the creditor was confusing and
In Riccio v. Client Services, Inc., the District Court of New Jersey dismissed a class action lawsuit finding that a failure to assure a consumer that statements in a letter would not change in the future was not materially misleading under the least sophisticated debtor test.
On February 13, 2020, Joanne Riccio received a
Plaintiffs John Slomanski and Margaret Brusewitz brought an FDCPA class action, Slomanski and Brusewitz v. Alliance Collection Agencies, in the Eastern District of Wisconsin alleging that debt collection letters sent to them and other class members were misleading and violated §1692e of the FDCPA. They alleged that the letters were misleading because they listed
