A District Court judge in North Carolina has granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss after it was sued for allegedly violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, ruling that it can not be held liable if someone else with the same name, living at the same address, opened a summons and complaint that was addressed to the plaintiff.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Green v. Brock & Scott can be accessed by clicking here.
The case appears to have had a long and circuitous path that ultimately led Judge Kenneth Bell of the District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Charlotte Division, to grant the motion to dismiss. Glossing over most of the procedural history of the case, the details boil down to this: The defendant sent a summons and complaint to the plaintiff at his residential address, seeking to recover an unpaid credit card debt. But someone else with the same name, living at the same address, opened the packages that were addressed to the plaintiff. The plaintiff filed suit, alleging the defendant violated Section 1692c(b) of the FDCPA by communicating with a third party in connection with the collection of a debt.
But how was the defendant to know that two individuals with the same name were living at the same address? They weren’t, Judge Bell ruled. There is no precedent for finding a debt collector liable for an FDCPA violation for “mailing a properly marked envelope to a consumer in his own name,” Judge Bell wrote.
If that were the case, Judge Bell noted, “such a rule would effectively prohibit the mailing of debt collection communications to consumers.”
