A District Court judge in Minnesota has granted a motion for partial summary judgment filed by a trio of plaintiffs in related cases and denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment after it was sued for violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because it allegedly violated civil procedure laws in Minnesota when it filed collection lawsuits against the plaintiffs.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Wiley v. Portfolio Recovery Associates can be accessed by clicking here.
Each of the plaintiffs was served with a collection lawsuit filed by the defendant. The plaintiffs were sued in Minnesota state court to recover unpaid credit card debts. The summons included instructions with respect to contacting the individual who signed the summons within 20 days of receiving it. The summons was signed by “Anita Sunde” and included a P.O. Box in Fargo, North Dakota. Below the signature block were two addresses in Minnesota.
The plaintiffs fought the collection lawsuits, alleging the summonses violated state law in Minnesota, which requires that summonses provide an address within the state where the the subscriber may be served in person and by mail. The state courts sided with the plaintiffs that the summonses did not comply with state law. The plaintiffs then turned around and filed lawsuits against the defendant, arguing that it violated Sections 1692e(2), 1692e(5), 1692e(10), and 1692f(1) of the FDCPA.
The Court’s analysis rested primarily on the 1692e(5) claim, which prohibits threatening to take an action that can not legally be taken. Given that the summons in the original collection lawsuit was legally defective and that the defendant said it would pursue default judgments against the plaintiffs if they failed to serve their answer to the North Dakota address, the summons amounts to a threat to take an action that can not be legally taken, ruled Judge Susan Richard Nelson of the District Court for the District of Minnesota.
