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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

7th Circuit reverses district court, holds settlement with debt collector moots claims against law firm

Courts Seventh Circuit Appellate FDCPA Debt Collection

Courts

On August 13, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit vacated a district court’s decision, holding that a consumer who settled with a debt collector is not entitled to pursue Fair Debt Collection Practices Act statutory damages claims against the debt collector’s law firm. Under the single recovery for a single injury principle, a consumer can only obtain one recovery for a single injury “regardless of how many defendants could be liable for that single injury, or how many different theories of recovery could apply to that single injury.” In this instance, the consumer settled the claim with the debt collector for $5,000 plus release of the consumer’s original debt. The consumer later sued the debt collector’s law firm, spending over $69,000 on attorneys’ fees to argue that the law firm filed suit to collect the debt in the wrong court. While the district court ordered the law firm to pay the attorneys’ fees to the consumer, the 7th Circuit reversed, holding that the settlement with the creditor rendered the consumer’s claim against the law firm moot and thus the consumer could not recover attorneys’ fees or costs.