Consumer Finance

Forbes reported that it received an email from representatives of Attorney General Xavier Becerra refusing an industry group request to delay enforcement of the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) due to the ongoing disruptions caused by the response to 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) (“COVID-19”).  With California on lockdown, and most businesses forced to close or have employees work… Read More

In Campbell v. Facebook, Inc., __ F.3d __, 2020 WL 1023350, The Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that violations of the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2510, et seq. (ECPA) and the California Invasion of Privacy Act, Cal. Pen. Code § 630, et seq. (CIPA) are, in and of themselves sufficient, without further allegations… Read More

In Cagayat v. United Collection Bureau, Inc, No. 19-3431, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 7234 (6th Cir. Mar. 9, 2020), the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit adopted and expanded the Third Circuit’s  Douglass decision to apply to an enclosed letter’s text that bleeds through an envelope. The Letters attached as exhibits do not utterly discredit Cagayat's assertion that the… Read More

In Northrup v. Innovative Health Ins., No. 8:17-cv-1890-T-36JSS, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31851, at *12-21 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 25, 2020), Judge Honeywell granted summary judgment to a TCPA defendant. The Eleventh Circuit's holding that a device qualifies as an ATDS only if it uses a random or sequential number generator resolved a large part of the consolidated appeals. One of… Read More

In Ku v. Trans, No. 2:18-CV-1714 JCM (BNW), 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27474 (D. Nev. Feb. 18, 2020), Judge Mahan ruled against an FCRA Plaintiff alleging inaccurate reporting of a bankrupt account. Unsurprisingly, information in a consumer report is inaccurate if it is patently incorrect. Carvalho, 629 F.3d at 890. Even if information is "technically accurate," however, it may be… Read More

In Faircloth v. AR Res., Inc., No. 19-cv-05830-JCS, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28335 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 19, 2020), Judge Spero found that the discovery rule did not apply to either the FDCPA or Rosenthal Act. 1. The Discovery Rule Does Not Apply to the FDCPA.  Defendant claims that the FAC should be dismissed because claims brought under the FDCPA and… Read More

In Allen v. Credit Collection Servs., No. 2:18-cv-00929-MCE-KJN, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27363 (E.D. Cal. Feb. 18, 2020), Judge Englund dismissed an FDCPA claim on the basis that the call number and pattern did not constitute harassment under the FDCPA. Plaintiff maintains that, despite CCS' call logs and telephone recordings of the two actual conversations its representatives had with Plaintiff… Read More

In Gadelhak v. AT&T, here, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit disagreed with the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Marks, finding that an ATDS requires that a system store or produce numbers using a random or sequential number generator. We’ll save the intense grammatical parsing for the body of the opinion—here, we’ll just give the punchline. We hold that “using a random… Read More

In Lynaugh v. Vincent, No. CV-19-04643-PHX-DJH, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23246 (D. Ariz. Feb. 10, 2020), Judge Humetewa found that attorneys’ fees awarded in an underlying consumer litigation was not a debt incurred on a consensual basis and, accordingly, did not arise from a “transaction” under the FDCPA. The Court will first examine Defendants' contention that the attorneys' fees judgment… Read More

In Marshall v. Robins Fin. Credit Union, No. 5:19-CV-260 (MTT), 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22274 (M.D. Ga. Feb. 10, 2020), Judge Treadwell found against an FCRA Plaintiff in a ‘scheduled monthly payment’ claim. Robins argues that it did not furnish an inaccurate tradeline because the monthly payment amount of $524.00 is an accurate "historical term" for an account that it… Read More