Presented with either believing a defendant claiming it never contacted a plaintiff after she retained counsel and revoked consent to be contacted or a plaintiff who said that the defendant did call four more times, a District Court judge in Nevada is siding with the plaintiff for now, choosing to put her trust in what the Better Business Bureau says on its website. Adding another layer of complexity into the situation is the fact that two collection agencies with roughly the same name may have been trying to get in touch with the plaintiff at roughly the same time.
The Background: A plaintiff received treatment at a healthcare facility and agreed to be contacted on her cell phone or via email. She did not repay the debt and the account was placed with the defendant, which called the plaintiff 12 times over a seven-month span. The defendant was subsequently notified that the plaintiff had retained counsel and was revoking her consent to be contacted directly.
- What happened next is the issue in this case. The plaintiff claims the defendant called her four more times. Each of those calls were from the same number. The plaintiff submitted audio recordings and voicemails, in which a representative states they were calling from NPAS on behalf of the healthcare facility. The defendant claimed it never used the number that placed those calls, that it never referred to itself as NPAS during its communications with the plaintiff, and that it is another collection agency with a nearly identical name that made those calls.
The Ruling: On summary judgment, a judge’s job is to determine whether there is a dispute of fact that should be left to a jury to decide.
- In this case, the Better Business Bureau apparently lists the defendant as the owner of the number that placed the additional calls to the plaintiff.
- The judge said she can’t ignore the recordings that were submitted by the plaintiff that show a collector called NPAS contacting the plaintiff for a debt she owed to the healthcare facility.
- Those issues created a dispute of facts that need to be left to a jury to determine who is likely telling the truth, the judge ruled.
