Someone may want to show the plaintiff in this Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case this scene from “A Few Good Men.”
For the second time, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has affirmed a lower court’s ruling in favor of a defendant that was sued for violating the FDCPA because it continued to attempt to collect on a student loan debt after the plaintiff had filed for bankruptcy protection which he claimed was sufficient to have the loan discharged.
The plaintiff filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in 2012. In the petition, he listed ECMC as a creditor. A bankruptcy judge granted the plaintiff’s petition to have his debts discharged. The defendant then used “harassing phone calls and letters” to attempt to collect on the debt and reported the debts to the three major credit reporting agencies. The plaintiff filed suit, alleging ECMC violated the FDCPA and the credit reporting agencies violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by attempting to collect a debt that had been discharged. A District Court judge granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss, ruling that the plaintiff failed to state a claim because his premise — that his student loan debt had been discharged — was incorrect. Under Section 523(a)(8) of the bankruptcy code, student loan debt is presumptively non-dischargeable and the plaintiff had not filed an adversary proceeding to determine otherwise.
Back in 2022, the Third Circuit affirmed the lower court’s ruling. The plaintiff then filed a motion to set aside the lower court’s ruling based on fraud on the court. His argument is that the defendant’s lawyer committed fraud by relying on pronouncements from Supreme Court decisions in court filings, and that his 523(a)(8) claim was unconstitutional. The District Court denied the motion, after which the plaintiff appealed the ruling back to the Third Circuit.
On appeal, the Third Circuit once again agreed with the lower court that the plaintiff did not establish the the defendant’s lawyer deceived the court or engaged in egregious misconduct.
