A District Court judge in Minnesota has granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss claims that a pair of creditors violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which in and of itself isn’t that ground-breaking, but the demands that were made by the plaintiff and how he attempted to convince the judge that the defendants should be subject to the statute make this a more interesting case.
The background: The plaintiff filed suit earlier this year after a $25 autopay withdrawal was made on his credit card account. He alleged he had previously turned off the autopay feature, and when the payment processed anyway, he contacted one of the creditors and claimed a representative promised to reverse the charge. According to the complaint, the reversal never occurred.
- From that dispute, the plaintiff sought the return of the $25 and an additional $100,000 in punitive damages for what he characterized as unauthorized access to his bank account and fraudulent conduct.
- He filed a single claim under the FDCPA, but did not identify a specific statutory provision that he believed was violated.
The ruling:Judge Susan Richard Nelson of the District Court for the District of Minnesota determined that the lawsuit failed at the most basic threshold: neither of the defendants was a debt collector under the FDCPA. Judge Nelson noted that one defendant originated the credit card, which statutorily excludes it from the definition of a debt collector, and the other was the creditor or servicer receiving payments on its own account.
- In the court’s words, “the Complaint fails to plead facts sufficient to establish that Defendants are ‘debt collectors’ under the FDCPA.” The judge also emphasized that even the plaintiff conceded the defendants were not debt collectors, undercutting any basis for the suit to proceed. The plaintiff did attempt to argue that “the FDCPA is not stand-alone legislation and not designed to supplant[,] but [rather, to] supplement all prior legislation on the process of debt collection.”
- The court also found no allegation that the debt was in default, a key requirement when analyzing whether a servicer may fall under the statute. Accepting a valid autopayment, the judge noted, is not conduct prohibited by the FDCPA and does not convert a creditor into a debt collector.
- Finally, the judge rejected the plaintiff’s attempt to use his FDCPA claim as a placeholder for other unspecified theories, stating that “no amount of repleading will cure it.”
