A District Court judge in Mississippi has denied a defendant’s motion to stay a Hunstein case, ruling that it did not meet its burden of “establishing a clear case of hardship or inequity,” and because the Eleventh Circuit has not yet “agreed to take the rare step of” granting the petition to rehear the underlying case.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Guessford v. AFNI can be accessed by clicking here.
The case is one of hundreds of cases that have been filed in the wake of the ruling out of the Eleventh Circuit in Hunstein v. Preferred Management & Collection Services, which alleged that using an unauthorized third-party vendor to print and mail collection letters constituted a communication in connection with the collection of any debt. The defendant has petitioned the Eleventh Circuit for an en banc rehearing of the case and is awaiting the decision from the Court. In the meantime, courts across the country have been flooded with similar complaints, including the one in this case.
The defendant filed a motion to stay, arguing that proceedings should be halted until the outcome of the en banc petition is made. But, if the Eleventh Circuit grants the petition, it is likely that the defendant will want to extend the stay until the rehearing is concluded and a new opinion is issued, noted Magistrate Judge John Gargiulo of the District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. And who knows how long that could take. And, Judge Gargiulo pointed out, Mississippi is not in the Eleventh Circuit.
While the defendant noted it could suffer “irreparable harm” to engage in discovery if the Eleventh Circuit grants the petition, Judge Gargiulo said it did not go far enough to explain “how engaging in routine litigation activities such as attending court hearings, briefing and filing motions, and engaging in other discovery amounts to a clear case of hardship and inequity.”
