District Court denies motion to dismiss FDCPA statute of limitations claims

Courts FDCPA Debt Collection Statute of Limitations Spokeo Consumer Finance

On March 5, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois denied defendants’ motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit alleging the defendants violated the FDCPA by failing to mention that payment on a settlement offer would restart the statute of limitations on the underlying “legally unenforceable debt.” According to the opinion, the defendants sent the plaintiff a letter outlining three discount program payment options, with a post-script stating that “[d]ue to the age of this debt, we will not sue you for it or report payment or non-payment of it to a credit bureau.” However, the plaintiff claimed that the letter’s failure to disclose that the statute of limitations could be restarted if a payment was made was a concrete information injury sufficient for Article III standing. The court rejected the defendants’ argument that the plaintiff alleged only a bare statutory violation and failed to identify a particularized injury in fact. Instead, the court ruled that even though the plaintiff has a complete defense because the statute of limitations had expired, the alleged injury is clear because the letter “seems to bait the consumer into paying money on a time-barred debt, either by settling for sixty cents on the dollar . . . or by unwittingly renewing the statute of limitations by making a new payment on the debt.”