In a case that was defended by Patrick Newman and Kira Locke from Bassford Remele, a District Court judge in Minnesota has granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case, because the plaintiff lacked standing on some of her claims, failed to state a claim on others, and should have raised certain defenses when she was sued for not paying the debt in the first place instead of doing it here, the judge ruled.
The Background: The plaintiff was sued by the defendant for an unpaid debt. She did not respond to the lawsuit and a default judgment was entered against her. The plaintiff subsequently filed this complaint, alleging the defendant violated the FDCPA by attempting to collect on a debt it allegedly did not owe, and because the summons, notice of intent, and declaration were false and misleading.
The Ruling: I haven’t mentioned this yet, but the ruling from Judge Eric C. Tostrud of the District Court for the District of Minnesota is 37 pages long, so summarizing that into a few hundred words means I’m probably going to skip over some important parts, especially because I’m not a lawyer, but here goes …
- Judge Tostrud does a lengthy analysis to determine whether the plaintiff has standing to sue, and rules that some of the claims should be dismissed because the plaintiff did not suffer a concrete injury.
- Whether the defendant owned the debt or not was settled when the state court granted a default judgment against the plaintiff, Judge Tostrud ruled, and doesn’t need to be re-litigated here.
- As to the claims that the defendant violated different provisions of Sections 1692e and 1692f of the FDCPA, Judge Tostrud ruled the statements made by the defendant were not false or misleading. The plaintiff did not identify anything in the collection lawsuit summons that was defective or absent, the judge noted.
