Reverse Mortgage Solutions, Inc. (“RMS”), a leading servicer of home equity conversion mortgages, commonly known as reverse mortgages, recently received a complete defense verdict in the United States District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, in a trial presided over by Judge Irene Berger. The case arose out of a reverse mortgage entered
On May 31, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a $150,000 sanctions award against three consumer attorneys and their law firms for bad faith conduct and misrepresentations.
The opinion reads like a detective story and lays out, in the Court’s own words, “a mosaic of half-truths, inconsistencies, mischaracterizations, exaggerations, omissions, evasions, and failures to
In Echlin v. PeaceHealth, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that a debt collection agency meaningfully participated in collection efforts even if it did not have authority to settle the account, did not receive payments, and was not involved in collection beyond sending two collection letters. Accordingly, the collection agency
In a short, straightforward opinion, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals joined its sister circuits that have applied a materiality standard to consumer claims of falsity and deception under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
Consumer Paul Hill incurred a medical debt, and the creditor hired Accounts Receivable Services, LLC to collect the debt.
On April 23, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency Bank added its support to Bank of America’s efforts to convince the Ninth Circuit to review a March 2 panel decision holding that the National Bank Act does not preempt a California state law requiring the payment of 2% interest on escrow accounts. “The
In a recent ruling, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that plaintiffs stated a viable claim under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by alleging that a collection letter which included the safe harbor language set forth in Miller v. McCalla, Raymer, Padrick, Cobb, Nichols, & Clark, LLC, 214 F.3d 872 (7th Cir.
In a still-incomplete provocative piece whose conclusions were presented at this year’s American Economic Association (“AEA”) meeting in Philadelphia in January 2018 and highlighted by the American Bankruptcy Institute on March 29, 2018, three economists—Gene Amromin, Vice President and Director of Financial Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Janice C. Eberly
We previously reported on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Oliva v. Blatt, Hasenmiller, Leibsker & Moore, LLC, 864 F.3d 492 (7th Cir. 2017). In Oliva, the sharply-divided Seventh Circuit held that the debt collector was liable under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act even though the collector followed a longstanding
According to a recent decision from the California Court of Appeal, mortgage lenders and servicers can, at least under certain circumstances, be “debt collectors” under the California Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, frequently referred to as the “Rosenthal Act.”.
In the case, plaintiff Edward Davidson filed a putative class action suing his mortgage servicer,
On February 16, a judge in the Eastern District of New York denied a defendant collection law firm’s motion to dismiss, finding that its collection letter violated the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because it did not clearly set out that interest and fees may accrue on the “current balance.”