District Court partially grants summary judgment in favor of CFPB in debt collection action

Courts FDCPA CFPB Debt Collection CFPA

On March 21, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia partially granted the CFPB’s motion for summary judgment against a New York-based company and three individuals for allegedly violating the CFPA and the FDCPA in a debt collection operation, but denied the motion for the remaining defendants—a Georgia-based company and one individual—determining there was a genuine issue of material fact. As previously covered by InfoBytes, in March 2015, the CFPB filed a lawsuit against participants in the debt collection operation, alleging that the participants attempted to collect debt that consumers did not owe or that they were not authorized to collect. Further, the CFPB alleged that the participants used harassing and deceptive techniques, including placing robocalls through a telephone broadcast service provider to millions of consumers, stating that the consumers had engaged in check fraud and threatening them with legal action if they did not provide payment information. As a result, according to the CFPB’s allegations, the participants received millions of dollars in profits from the targeted consumers. The CFPB moved for summary judgment on all claims.

The court granted the motion on all claims against the New York-based company and three individuals, concluding that they committed multiple violations of the CFPA and the FDCPA through, among other things, the robocalls, false legal threats, and the processing of consumer payments. With respect to the CFPA claims against certain individuals, the court found that they provided “substantial assistance” to the other participants in the operation as they committed actions in violation of the CFPA, and therefore were liable themselves. With respect to the Georgia-based company and one individual, the court concluded that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether either qualified as a “debt collector” under the FDCPA and, therefore denied the CFPB’s motion as to those claims. Because there are remaining issues as to some of the participants’ liability, the court concluded that a ruling on damages would be premature.