The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit yesterday overturned a summary judgment ruling in favor of a collector in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case, but only to remand the case back to the District Court with instructions to dismiss it instead, because the plaintiff lacked standing to bring his suit in the first place.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Ward v. National Patient Account Services Solutions can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff made two visits to a medical center, incurring an $80 balance for each visit. The accounts were placed with the defendant for collection. For each debt, the defendant sent two collection letters and left one voicemail message. The defendant used NPAS to refer to itself in the letters and voicemail messages. The voicemail messages said:
We are calling from NPAS on behalf of Stone Crest Medical Center. Please return our call at 1 800-223-9899, Monday through Friday between 8:30 A.M. and 9:30 P.M. Eastern Standard Time and Saturday between 9:00 A.M. and 1:00 PM. Eastern Standard Time. Thank you. Hello, we are calling from NPAS on behalf of Stone Crest Medical Center. Please return our call at 1 800-223-9899, Monday through Friday between 8:30 A.M. and 9:30 P.M. Eastern Standard Time and Saturday between 9:00 A.M. and 1:00 PM. Eastern Standard Time. Thank you.
While he was receiving the letters and voicemails, the plaintiff retained counsel and sent a cease-and-desist letter to NPAS Solutions, an unrelated company to the defendant. The defendant continued to try and get in touch with the plaintiff because it had not received the cease-and-desist request.
The plaintiff filed suit, alleging the voicemail messages violated Section 1692e(11) of the FDCPA because the defendant failed to identify itself as a debt collector in the voicemail, Section 1692e(14) by failing to use its true name, and Section 1692d(6) because the defendant placed the calls without making a meaningful disclosure of its identity.
The defendant filed a motion for summary judgment, which was granted on the grounds that the defendant did not meet the definition of debt collector under the FDCPA because the debts were not in default at the time that the communications were sent.
Ultimately, two of the three Sixth Circuit judges sitting on the panel for this case ruled the plaintiff lacked standing to sue because he never alleged more than a “bare procedural violation of the FDCPA.” The injuries allegedly suffered by the plaintiff — confusion and having to retain counsel — do not rise to the level of a concrete injury, the panel ruled.
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Karen Nelson Moore argued that the voicemail message that was sent after the cease-and-desist request was made does meet the definition of a concrete injury.
“… Congress enacted the FDCPA to protect against the invasions of privacy that occur from unwanted debt-collection calls,” Judge Nelson Moore wrote. “We may think that Congress has elevated a relatively insignificant harm, but that was Congress’s decision to make, and it is not a reason to hold that Ward lacks standing to sue.”
