A recent decision of the Northern District of Ohio, Vantu v. Echo Recovery, L.L.C., held that a repossession agency, while generally not subject to liability under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, becomes subject to such liability when it undertakes to repossess collateral that it does not have a present right to possess.
This case
On January 21, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania struck a class action under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692 et seq. (“FDCPA”) and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, 47 U.S.C. §§ 227 et seq. (“TCPA”). Although the judge allowed the lead plaintiff to pursue
On January 13, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the District Court’s grant of class certification in a case where plaintiffs allege violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. In Powers v. Credit Management Services, the defendant filed standard-form complaints and discovery requests against the plaintiffs in state court to collect past
On December 8, the Southern District of Indiana released a decision relating to the interplay between the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and bankruptcy. In Grandidier v. Quantum3 Group, LLC, the District Court denied a motion to dismiss a plaintiff’s complaint relating to the supposed filing of a time-barred proof of claim in the
In Powell v. Palisades Acquisition XVI, LLC, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the filing of an assignment of judgment in a debt collection action qualifies as debt collection activity that triggers the requirements of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”). In so holding, the Fourth Circuit overturned the decision of
In Harold v. Steel, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) suit based on the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. In the case, a small claims court in Marion County, Indiana, entered a judgment against Kevin Harold for a little more than $1,000. He
On November 10, the Supreme Court declined to review an appeal by debt collection law firm Phelan Hallinan & Shmieg LLP over a Third Circuit decision in a class action that held that debtors are not required to dispute a debt under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act before filing an FDCPA lawsuit.
On June
On November 13, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York ruled that a debt collector’s voicemail message did not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act when it never mentioned that plaintiff owed a debt or conveyed any information about the debt, despite being overheard by the plaintiff’s son. In Zweigenhaft
In Alexander v. Coast Professional, Inc., No. 12-cv-1461, (E.D. Pa. Sept. 5, 2014), the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania certified a class of Pennsylvania residents with defaulted student loans serviced by Coast Professional. The class action under the FDCPA is based on the allegations that Coast Professional failed to
On September 18, in Peters v. Financial Recovery Services, Inc., the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri held that neither the federal Truth in Lending Act (TILA) nor the Federal Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) prohibit a debt collector from charging state statutory pre-judgment interest after charge-off. In reaching that