In Brown v. Van Ru, plaintiff alleged that defendant's voice mail message left for the payroll department with plaintiff's employer's general voicemail box violated the FDCPA because it alternatively failed to contain required disclosures, or constituted a third party disclosure of plaintiff's debt. The message asked for a return call from the payroll personnel, and included the company name and a reference number. The court granted defendant's motion to dismiss, concluding that the message was not a communication under the FDCPA because it did not communicate any information about the debt, was not directed at plaintiff, and did solicit a response from plaintiff, while rejecting plaintiff's argument that inclusion of the company name indirectly implied a debt. The court also found that the generic message overheard by a third party was not a disclosure of the debt because the message did not refer to the debt.
In Justice v. Ocwen, plaintiff allege that defendant violated the FDCPA while attempting to collect two mortgage debts. Defendant moved for summary judgment, contending that it was not a debt collector because it was a servicer of the loans, which were not in default when acquired by defendant. The court denied the motion, finding that though the term default was not defined by the FDCPA, the fact that plaintiff's debts were three months overdue at the time they were placed with defendant, combined with the underlying contract that defined a default to occur at the time a scheduled payment was missed, established that the accounts were in default at that time
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