Companies and organizations across the accounts receivable management industry are starting to line up behind the defendant in Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services, filing amicus briefs supporting the defendant’s petition for an en banc re-hearing before the entire Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Yesterday, briefs were filed by the Florida Creditors Bar Association, the National Creditors Bar Association, and The Print & Mail Coalition, a group of 12 different companies that providing printing services to companies in the ARM industry. More amicus briefs are expected to be filed in the days to come.
If anyone needed further proof of how serious the industry is taking this case, they need to look no further than the attorneys who are submitting these briefs. Ron Canter wrote the brief for the Florida Creditors Bar Association, Manny Newburger wrote the brief for NCBA, and John Bedard penned the brief on behalf of The Print & Mail Coalition. All of the briefs, as well as an updated list of cases that have been filed, and access to webinar recordings on the Hunstein case, are available on the AccountsRecovery.net Hunstein Resource Guide by clicking here. As well, click here to sign up for a webinar — sponsored by SndRight — on Wednesday, June 2 at 1pm ET to discuss how to comply with the Hunstein decision.
The briefs are making coordinated attacks on the different arguments why the Eleventh Circuit should grant the petition for an en banc re-hearing in order to try and reverse the original ruling that was issued last month by a three-judge panel. For example, in its brief, the National Creditors Bar Association argues that Eleventh Circuit’s analysis of the relevant section of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act — 1692c(b) — was “incomplete” because the FDCPA contemplates the use of third-party vendors in other areas and the way the law was written allows for information to be conveyed to third parties as long as it is not in connection with the collection of a debt.
The Print & Mail Coalition’s brief argues that the panel should have considered whether the communication between the defendant and the letter vendor constituted a communication and not just taken the parties’ word for it, and that Regulation F and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau allow for a collector to use a vendor’s mailing address as its own when satisfying the obligation to disclose mailing addresses to consumers.
The FCBA’s brief argues whether the plaintiff actually had standing to sue, among other arguments.
