A District Court judge in New York has ruled that a plaintiff’s strategy of basing her Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case on a strategy of “nuh-uh” is not enough to defeat a defendant’s motion to dismiss.
The Background: The plaintiff filed suit, alleging the defendant is not authorized to collect or report the alleged debt to the credit reporting agencies and that the defendant is lying if it says anything to the contrary. “Those facts essentially constitute the plaintiff’s entire story,” noted Judge Brian Cogan of the District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
- The defendant argues that the plaintiff opened an account with Capital One, ran up more than $7,000 in debt and then stopped making payments. The debt was charged off and sold to the defendant, which gave it the authority to try and collect on it and report it. The defendant also noted that it is pursuing a collection lawsuit in which both it and the original creditor have submitted affidavits backing up their side of the story.
The Ruling: A blanket denial of owing a debt and claim that the defendant is not authorized to collect is not enough to state a claim, Judge Cogan ruled. Had the plaintiff, for example, claimed the transfer of the debt from the original creditor to the defendant was somehow improper or if the defendant had mistaken the plaintiff’s identity, that would give the judge something to go on, he wrote.
- “Indeed, her claim is not a factual allegation at all, but rather an unsupported legal conclusion, which the Court is not obligated to treat as true,” Judge Cogan ruled.
