A recent case out of Connecticut waves a yellow flag at debt collectors who file lawsuits within 30 days of sending a consumer a validation notice under the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (“FDCPA”). On January 13, 2010, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that a law firm and two of its lawyers violated the FDCPA, 15 U.S.C. § 1692 et. seq., when it filed suit against a debtor during the 30-day validation period without providing additional explanation to the debtor about how the lawsuit affected the notice. Ellis v. Solomon and Solomon, P.C., et. al., No. 09-1247-cv (2d Cir. Jan. 13, 2010).
Tag Archives: Consumer Protection Statutes
Alaska Supreme Court Rejects Debt Collector’s Argument That Constitutional Right To Petition The Government Is Infringed By Alaska’s Consumer Protection Statute
Posted in Fair Debt Collection Practices ActIn a recent decision, the Alaska Supreme Court found that requiring a debt collector and attorneys to comply with Alaska’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act (UPTA) does not infringe on their Constitutional right to petition the government as set out in the Noerr-Pennington doctrine. (Pepper v. Routh Crabtree, APC, et al., No. 6437 (Nov. 20, 2009).
In Pepper, plaintiff Robin Pepper allegedly wrote 15 bad checks. The affected merchants assigned the dishonored checks to CRI, LLC (“Checkrite”) for collection, who retained the Routh Crabtree APC law firm to recover the debt. Routh Crabtree sent a demand letter to Pepper to an address that did not appear on the dishonored checks, was not an address at which Pepper had ever lived and did not appear to correspond to an actual building. When Pepper did not pay the debt, Routh Crabtree filed suit in state court to collect the debt and personally served Pepper with the summons. The Alaska Legal Services Corporation (ALSC) notified Routh Crabtree that it would be representing Pepper, but that there was insufficient service of process therefore Pepper would not be filing an answer. Without notifying ALSC, Checkrite sought the entry of default judgment against Pepper, which the court entered. Thereafter, Checkrite withdrew its petition for default judgment. On that same day, Pepper sued Routh Crabtree, the attorney Richard Crabtree and Checkrite in state court, alleging that the following three acts constituted “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” in violation of the UTPA: (1) the written demand was in violation of Alaska law (AS 09.68.115) which requires that written demands be personally delivered or sent via first class mail to “the address shown on the dishonored check”; (2) Pepper is mentally disabled and therefore defendants made a false averment to the court when they stated that she was competent; and (3) the attorney defendants violated Alaska law that required them to notify Pepper’s attorney before applying for entry of default judgment.