A District Court judge in Florida has granted one defendant’s motion to dismiss and another defendant’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case because the plaintiff lacked standing, ruling that the plaintiff should have known the collection letter in question was not misleading because he waited a year after receiving it to file his lawsuit.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Preisler v. Eastpoint Recovery Group and United Holdings Group can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff received a letter on or about Nov. 7, 2019 in regards to an unpaid debt that had been purchased by United and placed with Eastpoint for collection. The letter included the following statement: “The account listed above has been assigned to this agency for collection. We are a professional collection agency attempting to collect a debt. Any information we obtain will be used as a basis to enforce collection of this debt.”
On Nov. 6, 2020, almost one year to the day later, the plaintiff filed his suit against the defendants, alleging they violated Sections 1692d, 1692e, 1692f, and 1692g of the FDCPA because use of the word “enforce” in the letter allegedly overshadowed the validation notice by attempting to scare the plaintiff into making a payment.
But using the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling in Trichell v. Midland, Judge Rodolfo Ruiz II of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida determined that any injury suffered by the plaintiff was not sufficient to meet the standing requirements needed to sue.
“But even if the word ‘enforce’ in the Letter were truly misleading, this is light years away from the types of misrepresentations that are sufficient in and of themselves to create an injury in fact according to the FDCPA’s statutory findings,” Judge Ruiz wrote. “Indeed, Preisler does not dispute the amount of the debt, the validity of the debt, or that he owes the debt. Further, despite the purported ‘fear’ produced by the word ‘enforce,’ Preisler does not allege to have made a payment or have waived his right to dispute the debt. Thus, like the consumers in Trichell, Preisler generally alleges that the Letter is misleading without claiming that he was misled.”
Also, Judge Ruiz concluded, any merit to the plaintiff’s argument that the language in the letter overshadowed his right to dispute the debt vanished once the 30-day window expired. ” … if the Letter was misleading, Preisler knew that before he filed the Complaint — at which point any risk of harm associated with the language in the Letter had already dissipated,” Judge Ruiz wrote.
