Maryland Court of Appeals rejects distinction between “methods” of debt collection and “amounts” of debt to be collected

Courts State Issues Debt Collection Consumer Finance Class Action

On August 27, the Maryland Court of Appeals reversed a circuit court’s dismissal of petitioners’ Maryland Consumer Debt Collection Act (MCDCA) and Consumer Protection Act (MCPA) claims, rejecting a distinction drawn by some courts “between ‘methods’ of debt collection and ‘amounts’ of debts sought to be collected, when assessing a claim under CL § 14-202(8).” At issue is the amount of post-judgment interest charged above the maximum legal rate to individuals who defaulted on their residential leases.

In reversing, the Court of Appeals disagreed with the circuit court that MCDCA claims were restricted to “methods,” holding that § 14-202(8) should be interpreted “broadly to reach any claim, attempt, or threat to enforce a right that a debt collector knows does not exist,” and in this case, petitioners were not “precluded from invoking § 14-202(8) when the amount claimed by the debt collector includes sums that the debt collector, to its knowledge, did not have the right to collect.” However, the Court of Appeals held that, in contrast to the FDCPA, the MCDCA is not a “strict liability statute,” and although “where the law is settled at the time a collector takes a contrary position in claiming a right, the collector’s recklessness in failing to discover the contrary authority is equivalent to ‘aware[ness]’ (i.e., actual knowledge) of the authority,” such knowledge is a question of fact that could, in some cases, require a jury determination. As a result, the case was remanded to the circuit court to allow the petitioners an opportunity to file a new motion for class certification.