The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has partially overturned a lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit against a number of defendants alleging they violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, ruling that the third amended complaint filed by the plaintiff was not filled with “shotgun pleadings.”
A copy of the ruling in the case of Dressler v. Equifax et al can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff originally filed suit against a handful of defendants, including the Department of Education, Equifax, Navient, and Pioneer Credit Recovery, alleging violations of all three statutes. The original complaint, as well as the first, second, and third amended complaints were all dismissed as “shotgun pleadings,” in which a plaintiff makes a wide-ranging number of complaints against a wide number of defendants, hoping to hit one and get lucky. The plaintiff appealed the dismissal of the third amended complaint, which made 10 allegations against the defendants.
The Eleventh Circuit determined that eight of the 10 counts were legitimate and should not have been dismissed. Those counts include not investigating a debt that had been disputed, making too many phone calls, calling her cell phone without her permission, calling her cell phone using an automated telephone dialing system, and sending misleading collection letters.
Those counts have been remanded back to the District Court for adjudication.
The plaintiff’s “third amended complaint does not exhibit any of the typical characteristics of a shotgun pleading,” the Eleventh Circuit wrote in its ruling. “While not at all times a model of clarity, it is reasonably concise, alleges concrete actions and omissions undertaken by specific defendants, and clarifies which defendants are responsible for those alleged acts or omissions.”
