On September 27, 2021, Philadelphia Partner Lori Quinn with the assistance of Senior Counsel, Matthew Johnson, won summary judgment in a lawsuit brought against its client under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”). In its decision and order, the court gave great deference to the plaintiff, who represented himself pro se. The court found, however, that plaintiff failed to plead sufficient facts to state a claim. The court found the plaintiff failed to offer any non-conclusory factual allegations supporting a claim under the FDCPA or any other law.
The court was willing to consider documents attached to plaintiff’s complaint, but conceded even with the additional information provided through the documents, plaintiff failed to articulate a claim or cure the gross deficiencies in the complaint. The court held that, while the Court afforded the plaintiff special solicitude as a pro se and construed his complaint as liberally as possible, the court could not rewrite the complaint to allege facts not pled. Haber v EOS CCA, USDC EDNY, 20-cv-06637-AJN-BMC.
In a second matter, Matthew Johnson prevailed on a motion to dismiss in a Class Action in which the plaintiff alleged that a letter seeking to collect an out of statute consumer debt and included an offer satisfy the account at a discount violated the FDCPA by misrepresenting the status of the debt. The court accepted defendants’ argument that an offer to “satisfy” the account at a discount was distinguishable from an offer to “settle” out of statute debt, which the Third Circuit holds could mislead a consumer to believe that a collector could sue to recover the debt. This is because the term “settle” connotes the settlement of a lawsuit. The term “satisfy,” however, carries no such baggage.
Further, the court rejected plaintiff’s argument that the letter’s offer of a “discount” was misleading because, the plaintiff argued, the value of an out of statute debt is $0 such that the discount is illusory. The court held that even an out of statute debt remains a debt despite the fact that legal action may not be taken to collect it. Blair v. Federal Pacific Credit Company, Convergent Outsourcing, Inc., USDC, DNJ, 2:20-cv-04100-KM-JBC.