The State of California Appeals Court has overturned the dismissal of a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case on the grounds that the lower court judge erred in granting the defendant’s motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that it violated the state’s anti-SLAPP measures.
The Background: The plaintiff filed her complaint in 2021, accusing the defendant of violating the FDCPA and RFDCPA by attempting to collect on her student loan even though it could not substantiate that it had a right to do so.
- The plaintiff mentioned an enforcement action from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that accused the defendant of filing tens of thousands of collection lawsuits that its employees signed affidavits for but were in fact reviewed online through another agency. This essentially invalidated the chain of title that allowed the defendant to file the collection lawsuits.
- The defendant filed an anti-SLAPP motion, which is designed to provide for early dismissal of meritless lawsuits. The acronym “SLAPP” stands for “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.”
- The state court judge granted the anti-SLAPP motion, finding that the defendant had met is burden of establishing the complaint arose from the exercise of free speech and that the plaintiff failed to demonstrate a probability of prevailing because her claims were barred by litigation privilege.
The Ruling: On appeal, the plaintiff argued her claims were exceptions to the anti-SLAPP statutes because the defendant was engaged in illegal activity and the underlying conduct involved a series of activities that were not protected.
- Where the trial court erred, the Appeals Court ruled, is in finding that the litigation privilege applied to the plaintiff’s claims. Bolstered by an amicus brief from the Attorney General of California, the Appeals Court agreed with the plaintiff that a potential violation of the RFDCPA — the defendant allegedly fabricating evidence — defeats the litigation privilege.
