A District Court judge in Pennsylvania has granted a defendant’s motion for summary judgment in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act lawsuit that accused it of threatening to seize marital property and garnish wages over debts the plaintiff did not owe.
The background: The defendant is a debt buyer that owned more than 20 accounts belonging to the plaintiff and his wife.
- The plaintiff claimed the defendant and its agents placed threatening calls to him and his wife, warning that it would seize the couple’s joint marital property, levy their joint bank account, and garnish his wages to satisfy his wife’s debts, even though it had no legal right to take any of those steps.
- He also named a group of unidentified individuals and corporations that he said helped place the calls.
- A few months before filing suit, the plaintiff and his wife filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, at which point the servicer handling the accounts permanently closed them.
- The plaintiff sued in state court and the defendant removed the case to federal court.
- Moving for summary judgment, the defendant argued that it does not service debts at all, that a separate servicing company handles everything on the accounts it owns, and that the servicer neither called the couple nor authorized anyone else to call them in the year before the suit was filed.
- The plaintiff never filed a brief in opposition and never responded to the defendant’s statement of material facts.
The ruling: Judge Karoline Mehalchick of the District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania granted the motion and dismissed the complaint.
- Because no opposition was filed, the local rules deemed the motion unopposed and the defendant’s statement of material facts admitted, Judge Mehalchick noted, adding that the courts must make sure parties who follow the rules are not prejudiced by those who do not.
- Even with the motion unopposed, the judge wrote that she was “still required to conduct a full analysis” before granting summary judgment.
- On whether the defendant was a debt collector, the record included a sworn affidavit from a paralegal at the servicing company stating that the defendant does not service debts, and the plaintiff offered nothing from which a reasonable jury could find otherwise.
- On whether the case involved a debt covered by the statute, Judge Mehalchick pointed out that the plaintiff never identified which of the accounts was at issue and produced no evidence that it was used for personal, family, or household purposes.
- On whether any prohibited conduct occurred, the judge found no evidence that the defendant ever attempted to collect from the couple, against an unrebutted assertion that it made no collection attempt in the year leading up to the complaint.
- Falling short on those essential elements rendered every other fact in the case immaterial, the judge wrote, and the clerk was directed to close the case.
