A District Court judge in Ohio has granted most of a motion for summary judgment filed by the defendants in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Fair Credit Reporting Act case, dismissing 14 of the plaintiff’s 15 claims while allowing one claim, that a collector allegedly discussed the debt with the plaintiff’s friend, to proceed to trial.
The background: A dispute over an apartment lease spawned a 15-count lawsuit against a collection agency, one of its employees, a law firm, and one of its attorneys.
- The plaintiff signed a 12-month apartment lease in December 2021 but moved out after three months. The apartment complex determined he owed $1,949.59.
- The plaintiff disputed the debt, arguing the lease was void because it failed to disclose information required under Ohio law.
- The complex sued the plaintiff in municipal court, but the case was dismissed without prejudice at the complex’s request. The defendant then began contacting the plaintiff in an effort to collect.
- Last year, the plaintiff filed suit, alleging the defendants violated the FDCPA by contacting third parties, harassing him, failing to validate the debt, and making false representations, and violated the FCRA by failing to reasonably investigate his disputes and reinserting inaccurate information on his credit report. He also brought claims under the tax code, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and state law theories including fraud, civil conspiracy, and invasion of privacy.
- Both sides moved for summary judgment.
The ruling: Judge Walter Rice of the District Court for the Southern District of Ohio denied the plaintiff’s motion and granted the defendants’ motion on every claim except one.
- Judge Rice wrote that the plaintiff’s core theory, that the debt was extinguished when the municipal court case was dismissed, misconstrued the law, because a dismissal without prejudice is not a decision on the merits and did not wipe out any debt the plaintiff may have owed.
- The one surviving claim involves an alleged phone call in which an employee of the defendant told the plaintiff’s friend it was seeking to collect a debt from him. The defendants disputed the call happened, and the judge ruled that factual dispute must be resolved at trial.
- The plaintiff’s validation claim failed because his requests were made by phone, and the statute requires that a consumer notify the collector in writing.
- On the FCRA claims, the judge found the defendant verified the debt with the apartment complex after the plaintiff disputed it, and the plaintiff offered nothing in response beyond the fact that the debt came off his credit report years later.
- Several claims were dismissed because the statutes cited, including provisions of the FDCPA, the FCRA, the TCPA, the tax code, and the mail fraud statute, do not give individuals the right to sue.
- Dismissing the invasion of privacy claim, Judge Rice wrote, “Certainly, any person who receives a communication from a debt collector would rather be left alone. But this unpleasantness is not the requisite standard to state a claim for relief.”
