A District Court judge in Illinois has denied a plaintiff’s amended motion to certify a class in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case, ruling the plaintiff did not adequately follow instructions from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in defining the limits of who could be included in the class.
The background: The plaintiff filed this lawsuit because after disputing a debt, she received a letter from the defendant that included information about how she could dispute the debt. Having requested validation and not received it, the plaintiff mailed a second dispute letter to the defendant, spending money on postage.
- The plaintiff filed suit, and a District Court judge ruled the plaintiff did not have standing to sue. The plaintiff appealed the ruling and the Seventh Circuit overturned it, ruling the postage that the plaintiff was forced to pay for in mailing the second dispute letter was enough for her to have standing to sue.
- But the Appeals Court also ordered the plaintiff to amend her definition of the class to be limited to individuals who acted to their detriment after receiving the second letter from the defendant.
- The plaintiff filed an amended complaint, seeking to include anyone living in the state of Illinois, who “between September 14, 2017 and September 14, 2018, sought validation of a debt within forty-five days of the mailing of an initial collection letter from [the defendants] or their agents, and in response received a form letter that included a § 1692g validation notice (the “[defendant’s] § 1692g Notice Letter”), and who subsequently re-disputed and/or requested validation of the debt, within forty-five days of the mailing of the [defendant’s] § 1692g Notice Letter, in writing, via telephone, or via the ACDV automated credit dispute system (a/k/a e-Oscar).”
The ruling: After the Seventh Circuit remanded the case back to the District Court, the two sides engaged in discovery and identified 152 accounts that had some form of account activity in the 90 days after receiving the second validation letter. That was narrowed to 133 individuals, of whom:
- 28 verbally disputed the second validation letter
- 1 complained to the CFPB and BBB
- 1 sent an FTC identity theft affidavit to the defendant
- 4 disputed the debt through e-Oscar
- 11 sent a response to the original creditor
- 88 sent written responses to the defendant
The issue is defining individuals who “acted to their detriment” after receiving the second validation notice. The plaintiff contends this is anyone who did anything while the defendant says this only counts if the individual spent any money. Judge Sara L. Ellis of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, agreed with the defendant. It was the money that the plaintiff spent on postage for the second dispute letter that conferred standing, the Judge noted, so the only detriment at issue is financial in nature.
- “This means that the Court would have to hold mini-trials to determine whether each putative class member suffered financial harm to support Article III standing,” Judge Ellis wrote. “Because of the need to do so, the Court finds that individual issues concerning standing predominate over the common issues in this case.”
