A District Court judge in Texas has granted summary judgment in favor of a defendant that was accused of violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, in part because the plaintiff’s mother heard the plaintiff revoke consent to being contacted, except for the fact that the revocation came months before the defendant started calling the plaintiff.
A copy of the ruling in Young v. Medicredit Inc. can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff incurred two separate medical debts to the same facility, which were placed with the defendant for collection. On both visits, the plaintiff signed a consent form to be contacted by the facility or its agents, and allowed them to use “pre-recorded/artificial voice messages and/or use of an automatic dialing device.”
The plaintiff alleged to orally revoke consent to be contacted, relying on the deposition of her mother, who testified she heard her daughter say “stop calling me” to someone on the phone. When the mother asked her daughter who was calling, the daughter said it was the defendant. However, that conversation happened three months before the defendant started making calls. The defendant also had recordings from the two times it connected with the plaintiff over the phone. One call was disconnected by the defendant when the plaintiff answered, and the plaintiff hung up on the other call when a representative of the defendant identified herself.
The plaintiff also tried to allege the defendant violated the FDCPA by making too many calls that harassed her. A record from the defendant identified 79 calls that were placed during a period of 22 months. The defendant never made more than one call per day and only called on successive days 12 times during the 681-day period.
