This is one of those cases where I need to remind everyone from the outset that I am not an attorney, but the ruling seems so interesting, at least to me, that I wanted to bring your attention to it and try to pretend to be a lawyer for a few minutes. At any rate … The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court’s ruling that the plaintiff in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act lawsuit is not entitled to $25,000 in costs because he “requested costs not contemplated by the federal rules and relevant statue.”
A copy of the ruling in the case of Peck v. IMC Credit Services can be accessed by clicking here.
The defendant sent a collection letter to the plaintiff. The envelope that held the letter had a glassine window, through which a barcode containing the plaintiff’s personal information could be viewed. The plaintiff filed suit, alleging the envelope and letter violated Section 1692f(8) of the FDCPA by revealing his personal information and Section 1692g(a)(4) for failing to verify the plaintiff owed the debt in question.
The defendant made an offer of judgment in the amount of “$1,101,
plus costs to be awarded by the court” which the plaintiff accepted. But this is where the case goes sideways. The plaintiff believed the offer included the damages he sought.
This is the part where being an attorney is beneficial, with both sides filing motions and a District Court judge asking the plaintiff to file a bill of costs. That bill included $24,137.50 to reimburse the plaintiff for the hundreds of hours he worked on the case, and $47,425.02 in punitive damages. Ruling that the plaintiff was entitled to none of that, the District Court judge awarded the plaintiff $1,101.
The plaintiff filed an appeal, but the Appeals Court concurred with the District Court that the type of costs recoverable under the rule in question “do not include any kind of damages, nor the compensation Peck seeks for his time and mailing expenses.”
