Oklahoma District Court Dismisses Most Claims in Putative Wrongful Foreclosure Class Action

Foreclosure FDCPA FCRA

On January 6, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma dismissed the majority of claims brought by two borrowers seeking to represent a class of borrowers against Bank of America Corporation, Bank of America N.A., and BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP (collectively BAC) for alleged wrongful foreclosure practices. Risener v. Bank of Am. Corp., No. 10-1110 (W.D. Okla. Jan 6, 2012). In this case, the borrowers claim that after their original servicer ceased operations, their loan servicing was assigned to BAC and their loan was inaccurately recorded as being in default. According to the borrowers, multiple attempts to prove that the borrowers were not in default were ignored by the defendants. Further, according to the borrowers, BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP, continued to send default notices and threatened to foreclose, refused to verify the borrowers’ default status, and reported false information about borrowers to credit reporting agencies.

As such, the borrowers allege that defendants (i) violated the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) by using false, deceptive, or misleading representations in the collection of debts and by failing to provide certain required notices; and (ii) violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by providing false information to credit reporting agencies and by failing to investigate the disputed default loan status. Agreeing with a recent Georgia decision involving a similar fact pattern, the court held that because the borrowers allege their loan was not in default, BAC could not have been “debt collectors” subject to the FDCPA, because the FDCPA requires a loan to be “in default”, not “allegedly in default.” Further, the borrowers do not allege that Bank of America Corporation or Bank of America, N.A. ever attempted to collect a debt and, therefore, regardless of their status as a debt collector, cannot be found in violation of the FDCPA. With regard to the borrowers’ FCRA claims, the court held that the FCRA does not include a cause of action for the act of providing false information but that borrowers’ claims that BAC Home Loans Servicing failed to investigate were sufficiently supported by the allegations in the complaint and therefore could proceed.