A District Court judge in Oklahoma has granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss after it was sued for violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act because it responded to a certified letter from the plaintiff that email was the only way to conveniently contact her by sending another letter to the plaintiff via traditional mail.
The background: Back in December, the plaintiff received a collection letter from the defendant. The plaintiff send a certified letter back to the defendant, disputing the debt and stating that email was the only convenient way to communicate with her.
- The defendant sent another letter to the plaintiff, at which point the plaintiff filed suit and accused the defendant of violating Section 1692c(a)(1) of the FDCPA.
The ruling: The problem for the plaintiff is the Section 1692c(a)(1) of the FDCPA places limits on where and when a collector can communicate with a consumer, not how, noted Judge David L. Russell of the District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.
- The defendant used a growing number of cases across the country where judges have ruled that plaintiffs can not state a claim for relief under this section of the statute because email is a medium and not a time or place.
- The plaintiff attempted to argue that by stating email was the only convenient way to communicate with her, she was stating that her home was an inconvenient “place” for communication, and she used Regulation F’s empowerment of consumers to note that specific mediums of communication are inconvenient.
- Unfortunately, the plaintiff was unable to show that the defendant had notice that her home was an inconvenient place to send communications and that she was empowered to force the defendant to only communicate with her via email.
- The defendant noted that the plaintiff may very well received, open, and read emails that are sent to her in her home, which would not make her home an inconvenient place to receive communications. “And while it is true that [the plaintiff’s] letter implies that her home is an inconvenient place for [the defendant] to send communications, it also implies that everywhere that is not her email is similarly inconvenient,” Judge Russell wrote. “This preference goes beyond what the statute enables consumers to restrict.”
