FDCPA Caselaw Review for February 2017

insideARM maintains a free FDCPA resources page to provide the ARM community a destination for timely and topical information on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). This page is generously supported by TransUnion. See the page here or find it in our main navigation bar from any page on insideARM. 

The cornerstone of the page is a chart of significant FDCPA cases. Click on the link in the chart for the complete text of the decision. Where insideARM has published a story on the case, we provide a link. Case information and analysis is provided by Joann Needleman, a Clark Hill attorney and leader of the firm’s Consumer Financial Services Regulatory & Compliance Group.

For February, 2017 ten new cases have been added to the chart.  As always, there were both positive and negative outcomes.  Some of the more interesting and important cases were:

Madden v. Midland Funding LLC

This case has been closely watched and written about for some time. insideARM alone has written about the case three separate times: on May 26, 2015, April 1, 2016, and June 27, 2016. We will be writing about the latest chapter next week. 

The key issue in this case is whether a purchaser/assignee of an account (Midland) from a national bank, was permitted to charge the interest rate that was previously agreed by the cardholder to in the account agreement. 

In this last activity from February 27, 2017, on remand back from the Second Circuit, the District Court determined that the FDCPA claims raised by plaintiff would move forward and granted plaintiff’s request for class action certification. 

Hinderstein v. Advanced Call Center Technologies 

insideARM wrote about this case on March 8, 2017.  It is a positive decision for the industry.  Plaintiff had sued the defendant claiming a FDCPA violation under Section 1692d of the FDCPA.  The alleged “harassing” activity was 49 calls in 18 days.  The court ruled that the activity did not give rise to a FDCPA claim. 

Mikolajczyk v. Universal Fidelity, LP

insideARM published an article on this case on March 1, 2017. In short, a collection letter that included a “check box” to dispute was found to potentially be a FDCPA violation. What is interesting is that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) included with its Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) proposal a concept for a very similar type “check box.” 

Palmer v. Enhanced Recovery Co. LLC 

insideARM wrote about the Palmer case on February 14, 2017. In this case a plaintiff had sued the defendant, settled the case, signed a settlement agreement, and yet still tried to sue the defendant a second time on the exact same facts. The District Court ruled that the plaintiff would not have a second bite of the same apple.

These four cases are just a sampling of the updates for February.  See the chart for summaries of the other six cases. insideARM thanks Joann Needleman and the Clark Hill law firm for their thorough and timely case summaries.