District Court allows FDCPA debt dispute to proceed

Courts FCRA FDCPA Debt Collection Consumer Finance

On April 26, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama partially granted a defendant debt collector’s motion for summary judgment concerning alleged FCRA and FDCPA violations. According to the opinion, the defendant sent a dunning letter to the plaintiff’s son seeking to recover unpaid debt. The plaintiff disputed the amount of debt owed and asked that the debt not be reported to the CRAs. However, two years later the son noticed the debt was included on his credit report and wrote to a CRA to dispute the debt. The defendant conducted an investigation to verify the debt and asserted that it told the CRAs that the son continued to dispute the debt. The credit reports the son obtained after the investigation, however, did not include a notation on his credit report showing the debt as disputed. The plaintiff brought suit on behalf of his son alleging the defendant violated the FCRA by failing to investigate the disputed debt, and the FDCPA by failing to communicate with the CRAs and misrepresenting the amount of the debt. The court granted summary judgment on the FCRA claim, finding that the dispute as to the debt owed was based on a legal defense not a factual inaccuracy, and that “the FCRA makes a furnisher liable for failing to report a dispute only if the dispute is meritorious.” The court, however, permitted the FDCPA claim predicated on the alleged failure to communicate with the CRA to proceed to trial because there is no analogous requirement that the dispute be meritorious to state a claim. The court dismissed the FDCPA claim predicated on the dunning letter for lack of standing.