A District Court judge in Ohio has denied a defendant’s motion to dismiss after it was sued for allegedly violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by accidentally attaching a judgment to the house of the plaintiff’s parents instead of the plaintiff.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Morton v. Kevin John O’Brien can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff took out a personal loan from a check cashing facility which was not repaid. The facility, through the defendant, filed a lawsuit against the plaintiff. The address listed in the lawsuit was that of the plaintiff. The facility obtained a judgment against the plaintiff.
The defendant then filed certificate of judgment against the plaintiff. In the documents associated with the filing, the defendant listed a different address for the plaintiff — that of her parents. The clerk of the court issued a certificate of judgment using the correct address for the plaintiff.
The defendant then sent a collection letter to the plaintiff at her address and not that of her daughter. The letter threatened to initiate a foreclosure action against the plaintiff if the debt was not paid.
The plaintiff contacted the defendant and told him that the debt belonged to her daughter and not her, and that the daughter did not live at the address the letter was sent to. The plaintiff’s complaint said the defendant “refused to promise” not to foreclose on the house.
The defendant attempted to argue that not even a least sophisticated consumer could have felt deceived or threatened because “no reasonable person in plaintiff’s position would have believed that defendants could attach a lien to her home and proceed with foreclosure.”
But Judge James Graham of the District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, ruled that the plaintiff has sufficiently alleged that the collection letter contained a false or deceptive statement and that the plaintiff could had been deceived by the defendant’s conduct.
“In the mailing plaintiff received, her residence was identified three times — on the envelope, at the top of the letter and in the body of the letter — as the one subject to a lien and foreclosure,” Judge Graham wrote. “The letter specifically warned plaintiff not to ignore the matter. Even if a recipient had reason to think there had been a mistake, as plaintiff soon did, it is plausible that the letter’s incorrect representations and threats of foreclosure would have caused the least sophisticated consumer to believe that there was a legitimate potential of defendants proceeding with a foreclosure.”
