The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently held that a borrower failed to establish an actual harm resulting from his mortgage servicer’s response to a Qualified Written Request (“QWR”), thus affirming the lower court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the servicer. The use of QWRs is a common and growing
In March 2018, the Predatory Lending Unit of the Virginia Attorney General Office’s Complaint against online lender Future Income Payments (“FIP”) began with the words of Sir Walter Scott: “what a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive.”[1] The lawsuit charged FIP with disguising unlawful loans – in excess of 183%
The Eastern District of Wisconsin issued a ruling dismissing an Equal Credit Opportunity Act case that asserted a novel claim regarding discrimination by a lender in requiring that the applicant remove disputes from his credit score before reviewing his application for a home equity loan. In Kolodzinski v. Pentagon Federal Credit Union, the Court
In a recent decision, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the Middle District of Alabama’s dismissal of a consumer’s claim under § 1692g of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because he failed to state a plausible claim for relief.
Among other things, § 1692 of the FDCPA requires a debt collector to “send the consumer a
Effective December 1, important changes are coming to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including:
In an ominous sign, Americans’ total debt hit another record high, rising to $13.5 trillion in the last quarter, as student loan delinquencies jumped, according to Reuters. Specifically, flows of student debt into serious delinquency – of 90 or more days – rose to 9.1 percent in the third quarter from 8.6 percent in
As Congress’ emboldened majority has sought to lessen the federal government’s regulatory footprint, the states have not always been quiet, as one summertime example amply shows.
In 2017, two congressmen introduced two bills which, if enacted, would expand the scope of federal preemption to include non-bank entities. Introduced by Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), the
On November 16, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the current chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the committee and the author of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, unveiled the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (“TRACED Act”). Among other things, this bill would require carriers to eventually
The West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act (“WVCCPA”) is a remedial statute designed to protect West Virginia consumers from improper debt collection. Only “consumers” have standing to file a lawsuit under the WVCCPA. The term “consumer” is defined as a natural person that owes a debt or allegedly owes a debt. But does a
In a recent decision dismissing a purported class action against Zillow Group, Inc., launched by disgruntled purchasers of the company’s securities, the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington provided a remarkably thorough—and an eminently useful—distillation of the federal judiciary’s emergent application of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974