In a case that was defendant by Lippes Mathias, a serial plaintiff who has filed nearly two dozen lawsuits against financial services companies and debt collection operations has had a lawsuit he filed alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act dismissed because the allegation he made that he was in poverty when seeking to proceed with the case and not pay the usual filing fees was untrue, a District Court judge in California has ruled.
The background: The plaintiff filed this complaint back in January, alleging a collection operation and a credit reporting agency failed to conduct a reasonable investigation when the plaintiff disputed the debt. The collection operation was also accused of contacting the plaintiff at inconvenient times and places via telephone calls and text messages, and for engaging in conduct that was intended to harass the plaintiff. The operation was also accused of failing to identify itself as a debt collector in the text messages it sent to the plaintiff and for allegedly sending text messages without providing the plaintiff with a way to respond directly through the same medium.
- The plaintiff also submitted a request to proceed in forma pauperis, in which he indicated his monthly income was $2,100 and that he did not have any other sources of income. The judge granted the plaintiff’s motion to proceed, which meant any of his filing fees were thereby waived.
- The defendant responded with a motion of its own, noting that the plaintiff had filed 21 other actions in the same jurisdiction, more than 12 of them in the prior six months. In all but two of the cases, the plaintiff filed an IFP motion. In reviewing court documents, the defendant noted that the plaintiff had reached settlements in at least four different cases, including one in which he had initially demanded $2 million in damages from the defendant.
- The plaintiff opposed the motion, arguing that the IFP request did not take away from the merits of the case and the details of the settlements were confidential and not admissible.
The ruling: Judge John W. Holcomb of the District Court for the Central District of California didn’t mince words or beat around the bush in his ruling, determining that the plaintiff “deliberately concealed his prior settlement income in order to gain access to this Court without prepayment of filing fees.”
