A District Court judge in Kentucky has granted a defendant’s motion for summary judgment in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case, ruling the collection letter that was sent to the plaintiff did not misrepresent that eight different debts had been aggregated into one, mainly because the plaintiff was provided with an itemized breakdown of the debts when she disputed them.
The Background: Between 2011 and 2015, the plaintiff visited a hospital emergency room seven times, incurring eight different debts. Each time, the plaintiff signed an intake form agreeing to pay for treatment.
- The plaintiff reviewed her credit report and noticed that the defendant was reporting four different debts to the credit reporting agencies. The plaintiff disputed the debt and received an itemization from the defendant in March 2021 that reflected the eight debts that were owed.
- A month later, the plaintiff was sent a letter seeking to collect on the debts that informed the plaintiff the defendant might pursue legal action if the debt was not paid.
- The plaintiff filed suit, accusing the defendant of falsely implying it was trying to collect a single debt from her, threatening to sue to collect on time-barred debts, and for failing to inform her that the debts were time-barred.
The Ruling: The plaintiff attempted to argue that the forms she filled out at the hospital were not written contracts and thus not subject to the written contract statute of limitations in Kentucky, but Judge David J. Hale of the District Court for the Western District of Kentucky ruled the forms contained all the essential components of an agreement and therefore meant the defendant was not attempting to collect on time-barred debts.
- The plaintiff also claimed the letter she received was misleading because it misrepresented the status of the eight debts as being a single account — the account number provided in the letter corresponds to only one of the seven visits.
- The fact that the plaintiff was provided with an itemized list of the debts when she disputed them meant that even a least sophisticated consumer could determine that the “amount due” in the letter reflected the sum of the debts, Judge Hale ruled.
