InfoBytes Blog
District Court grants summary judgment in favor of debt collector
On January 31, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida granted summary judgment in favor of a defendant debt collector concerning alleged violations of the FDCPA. The plaintiff alleged that she received six phone calls from the defendant, starting in May of 2020, seeking to collect debt owed by the plaintiff’s granddaughter. The plaintiff allegedly explained to the defendant during the first call that she did not live with her granddaughter and that the defendant would not be able to reach the granddaughter through that number. She also allegedly requested the defendant stop calling. On June 27, 2020 the plaintiff filed suit alleging violations of Sections 1692d, 1692c(a)(1), and 1692e of the FDCPA and the Florida Consumer Collections Practices Act (FCCPA). The court dismissed the state law claim, as well as the plaintiff’s Section 1692d claim, after determining that “neither the volume and frequency nor the content of the calls constituted abusive or harassing conduct under the FDCPA or FCCPA.”
After reviewing the remainder of the FDCPA claims, the court ruled that the plaintiff’s Section 1692c(a)(1) claim failed because the protections afforded by Section 1692c(a)(1) are applicable only to a “consumer” meaning “any natural person obligated or allegedly obligated to pay any debt.” The court explained that because the plaintiff “did not owe the subject debt” the defendant was “entitled to judgment as a matter of law on” the Section 1692c(a)(1) claim. Additionally, the court determined that the plaintiff failed to show evidence that the defendant violated Section 1692e by making false, deceptive, or misleading representations when attempting to collect on the debt, because “[a] reasonable jury could not conclude from this record that the least sophisticated consumer would have been misled to believe that the purpose of the phone calls was to attempt to collect a debt from [the plaintiff].”