United States Ninth Circuit

In a class action lawsuit against a debt collector, claiming violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (Act), district court's grant of summary judgment against the plaintiff and denial of class certification on her claim that defendant's act of sending collection notices addressed to the debtor in "care of" the debtors' employers was in violation of the Act, is reversed where, because the Congress enacted the Act to to protect debtors from abusive practices and because the statute has consistently been liberally construed to achieve that objective, the act of sending "care of" letters constitutes a per se violation of the Act. However, because the contents of the letter does not violate the Act's prohibition against "false, deceptive, or misleading misrepresentations," the denial of class certification motion on this issue is affirmed. District court's imposition of sanctions against the defendant's attorney is also affirmed.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/01/2012
• Published 08/01/2012

Judges

• Fletcher

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel