District court rejects motions for summary judgement on FDCPA claims filed by CFPB, debt collection law firm

Courts CFPB Debt Collection FDCPA Dodd-Frank

On April 9, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio rejected motions for partial summary judgment and summary judgment filed respectively by the CFPB and a law firm accused of making false representations regarding attorney involvement in debt collection calls in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and Dodd-Frank. As previously discussed in InfoBytes, the CFPB alleged in its complaint that the law firm sent demand letters and made collection calls to consumers that falsely implied that the consumer’s account files had been meaningfully reviewed by an attorney, when, in most cases, no attorney had reviewed the account file. Among other things, the law firm countered that, because its communications truthfully identified it as a law firm and it was acting as a debt collector, these communications were not misleading to the “least sophisticated consumer”—a factor of measurement for analyzing FDCPA violations. The court ruled that “whether the communications at issue are misleading is a question of fact that must be determined by a jury.” The jury trial is set for May 1.