United States Second Circuit

Judgment dismissing plaintiffs' claims under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) is: 1) vacated in part and remanded, where a creditor that is collecting its own debts hires a law firm to mail thousands of letters to debtors that misleadingly indicate that the law firm has been retained to collect the creditor’s debts, and where the law firm has not engaged in any other bona fide efforts to collect those debts, the creditor can be held liable for violating the FDCPA pursuant to the statute's false name exception to creditor immunity, and here there exists disputed facts regarding the law firm's role in the collection process; and 2) affirmed in part, with respect to plaintiffs' TILA claims, where because defendants were assignees of the plaintiffs' mortgages and were not the persons to whom the mortgages were initially payable as reflected on the face of the loan documents, the district court correctly concluded that the defendants were not "creditors" under TILA and cannot be held liable for violating its provisions.

Appellate Information

• Decided 11/13/2013
• Published 11/13/2013

Judges

• KATZMANN

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel