The Court of Appeals of Virginia yesterday granted a petition for an en banc rehearing in the case it ruled on last month that overturned a lower court’s decision in favor of a debt buyer, ruling that the debt buyer had “scanty and incomplete” evidence to prove it owned the debt and thus had a right to collect on it, and has ordered the lower court to enter a judgment indicating the plaintiff does not owe the debt.
The case will now go before all 15 judges on the Virginia Appeals Court to determine whether the three judge panel that issued the February ruling got it right or not.
A timeline for the en banc rehearing has not yet been set. Both sides will now have to submit briefs to the full court and other interested parties will likely be able to submit amicus briefs in support of one side or the other.
When hearing an Appeal, the Appeals Court will usually assign three judges to hear arguments and issue a ruling. If either side is unhappy with that ruling, it can petition the court for an en banc rehearing. Each of the judges are then asked to vote on whether the rehearing should be granted, and if enough judges vote yes, the rehearing is granted and both sides are required to state their cases again, but this time in front of all of the judges on the court, not just the three that were originally assigned.
This case made waves when the ruling was released in late February because it said that subsequent buyers of debts must have specific and itemized paperwork detailing information about accounts when they are purchased. If the buyer is unable to produce documentation showing how the chain of title passed for each and every assignment, the buyer must produce a witness or affidavit who has personal knowledge that the specific account was assigned.
