The Superior Court of Pennsylvania has reinstated a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act class action that had been thrown out for lack of standing, ruling that a parent who received a collection letter about his minor son’s ambulance bill was allegedly obligated to pay the debt and therefore qualifies as a consumer.
The background: The dispute grew out of a single collection letter and the way it was addressed.
- Two years ago, the defendant sent the plaintiff a letter addressed to “PARENT OF” the plaintiff’s minor son, stating that it was “trying to collect a debt that you owe” to an ambulance company. The letter was not addressed to the son and did not say the son owed the debt.
- The plaintiff filed a putative class action in state court, claiming the letter used deceptive and misleading language and sought fees the law does not permit a collector to charge. He later filed an amended complaint asserting the same claim.
- The defendant filed preliminary objections arguing the plaintiff lacked standing to sue in his individual capacity, because his son incurred the debt and the plaintiff was therefore neither a debtor nor a consumer under the statute.
- The plaintiff argued the letter treated him as the party responsible for paying, and that an allegation of obligation is all the statute requires, whether or not a legal obligation ultimately exists. The defendant argued the letter reached him only in his representative capacity as a parent, and that he would likely have standing had he sued on his son’s behalf.
- Last year, the trial court sustained the objection and dismissed the case, relying on a federal decision holding that the father of a debtor was not a consumer. After the plaintiff appealed, the trial court filed an opinion agreeing with the plaintiff that its own order was wrong and should be reversed, and noting it would have granted reconsideration had the appeal not stripped it of jurisdiction.
The ruling: The Appeals Court reversed and sent the case back for further proceedings, agreeing with the trial court’s revised analysis.
- The federal decision the trial court originally relied on involved an adult son who shared his father’s name, and a letter the father could not reasonably have read as addressed to him. That opinion stressed the debtor was “an adult, not minor” debtor, language the trial court read as implying that the guardian of a minor who incurs a debt may indeed be a consumer.
- Accepting the well-pleaded facts as true, the panel found the plaintiff adequately pleaded that he is a person “allegedly obligated to pay” a debt, which is the statutory definition of a consumer.
- The defendant pointed to state cases limiting a parent’s liability for a child’s medical debts to periods when a support obligation exists. The panel observed that the letter itself contained no such qualifier, and that the plaintiff’s claims do not involve contesting his son’s debt.
