In Blandina v. Midland Funding, plaintiff alleged that various defendants contributed to violate the FDCPA by sending a collection letter that allegedly and falsely implied that interest was accruing, and filed a putative class action. After the class was certified, defendants filed a motion to determine the available statutory damage cap available under the FDCPA, arguing that the limit was $500,000 per action regardless of the number of defendants. Plaintiff argued that the damages were limited to $500,000 per defendant, and could be aggregated. The court cited with defendant, and found that the available damages was limited to a maximum of $500,000 per action, and that class caps could not be stacked.
In Perry v. Trident Asset Management, plaint alleged that defendant violated the FDCPA by failing to send the validation notice within 5 days of the initial communication. Plaintiff argued that the reporting of the debt to the credit bureaus was the initial communication, triggering the duty to send the validation notice, despite the fact that defendant did not talk to plaintiff until 3 months after the credit reporting. The court granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment, agreeing that credit reporting is not an initial communication with a consumer triggering a duty to send the validation notice.
In Haynes v. Allied Interstate, plaintiff alleged that defendant’s settlement letter violated the FDCPA because it stated that interest would continue to accrue, but did not describe how the additional interest charges would affect the ability to accept the settlement offer. The court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss, finding that the settlement offer was clearly for a fixed period of time and for a fixed amount, so that, while the amount of the debt could vary because of the interest charges, the settlement amount would remain the same.
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