This is one of those “This sounds like it might be a big deal, but I need to remind everyone that I’m not a lawyer so there’s a good chance this isn’t the big deal I think it is” type of case, but a District Court judge in Massachusetts may have just ruled that a plaintiff has standing to sue because he received a letter from the defendant that was “inconsistent with the required validation notice” language and granted the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Rocke v. Monarch Recovery Management can be accessed by clicking here.
The ruling in this case is short and to the point, and doesn’t include a lot of explanation or context. The plaintiff filed a class-action lawsuit against the defendant over a letter he received that claimed any notification of dispute from the plaintiff had to be filed in writing. The plaintiff alleged that the “in writing” requirement violated Section 1692g of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the letter itself violated Section 1692e of the FDCPA because it made a false, misleading, or deceptive representation.
Both sides filed motions for summary judgment. The defendant argued the plaintiff lacked standing, that he was not subject to a consumer debt, and that he failed to allege a violation of the FDCPA.
While many jurists across the country have gone to great lengths in recent years to detail how plaintiffs have lacked standing to sue in FDCPA cases because they did not suffer a concrete injury, Judge Rya W. Zobel of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts was short and to the point.
“… Plaintiff has standing based on the undisputed fact that Defendant sent Plaintiff a communication that was ‘inconsistent with the required validation notice’ language,” she wrote. Judge Zobel cited a case from the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit — Pollard v. L. Off, of Mandy L. Spaulding — in which the court held that standing exists “where debt collector violated Section 1692g of the FDCPA based on the statutory violation “in and of itself.'”
After making similarly short work of the defendant’s other two arguments, Judge Zobel granted the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment.
