EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is part of a series that is sponsored by WebRecon. WebRecon identifies serial plaintiffs lurking in your database BEFORE you contact them and expose yourself to a likely lawsuit. Protect your company from as many as one in three new consumer lawsuits by scrubbing your consumers through WebRecon first. Want to learn more? Call (855) WEB-RECON or email admin@webrecon.net today! Thanks to WebRecon for sponsoring this series.
DISCLAIMER: This article is based on a complaint. The defendant has not responded to the complaint to present its side of the case. The claims mentioned are accusations and should be considered as such until and unless proven otherwise.
An individual has filed a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case against a collection operation because it filed a collection lawsuit in the incorrect jurisdiction — the one next to the jurisdiction it should have — and after it dismissed the collection lawsuit when it learned it was filed in the incorrect jurisdiction. The defendant has removed the case to federal court after it was originally filed in Massachusetts state court.
The Background: A collection lawsuit was filed in Boston Municipal Court’s Small Claims Court against the plaintiff, to collect on an unpaid credit card debt. The area where the plaintiff resides is covered by two judicial districts. The case was filed in the incorrect district.
- The plaintiff was forced to take the morning off work and spend $3.40 in round trip bus far to go to court, where her counsel, Harvard Law School’s Legal Services Center, confirmed with the court clerk that the case was filed in the wrong district. The defendant agreed to dismiss the case without prejudice.
- Because it was dismissed without prejudice, the plaintiff is “very anxious” about being sued again, having to return to court, and being forced to take more time off work. This fear is “particularly acute” because she has been “extremely busy” at work lately, according to the complaint.
The Complaint: The suit accuses the defendant of violating Section 1692i(a)(2) of the FDCPA by filing the lawsuit in the wrong judicial district.
- The complaint also accuses the defendant of violating Massachusetts state law because the plaintiff sent the defendant a demand for relief and did not make an offer of settlement.
