Let’s go to the videotape. A District Court judge in Missouri has granted a defendant’s motion for summary judgment in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case, after the plaintiff claimed the defendant threatened arrest and imprisonment, which was rebutted by the call recordings submitted by the defendant.
The background: The plaintiff filed suit alleging that a collection agency repeatedly called him and his relatives about two charged-off credit card accounts. He claimed that the agency threatened to have him and his family arrested if payments were not made and that the debts were time-barred under Missouri’s five-year statute of limitations.
- The plaintiff also included claims for racketeering, fraud, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, but only the FDCPA and emotional distress claims survived early dismissal.
- The collector moved for summary judgment after discovery, submitting its call logs and recordings. Those records showed 23 total calls to the plaintiff between November 2022 and September 2023, all placed between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m., with no recorded threats or abusive conduct. The plaintiff did not submit evidence to dispute those facts or show that the debts were incurred for personal, family, or household purposes, which is a key element required for FDCPA coverage.
The ruling: Judge Cristian M. Stevens of the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri found that the defendant was entitled to judgment as a matter of law, writing that “[w]ithout more, no reasonable jury could find that this volume of calls amounts to harassment.”
- Judge Stevens also emphasized that “there is no plausible FDCPA violation in the absence of a threat of litigation or actual litigation,” noting that the defendant neither threatened to sue nor discussed legal action with the consumer.
- On the plaintiff’s emotional distress claim, the court said it failed as a matter of law because there was no evidence of “severe emotional distress that result[ed] in bodily harm.”
