The Sixth Circuit issued an opinion last week in Christian County Clerk v. Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., et al., 2013 WL 565198 (6th Cir. Feb. 15, 2013), addressing whether the district court properly dismissed two Kentucky county clerks' complaint against MERS and fifteen financial institutions for violations of state recording statutes. The subject complaint alleged that the Defendants, by establishing and participating in the MERS system, violated Kentucky law by failing to record mortgage assignments and, more specifically, created MERS "to enable its ...
A New Jersey federal district court recently denied a motion to reconsider its previous holding that state law limitations on class actions do not apply to TCPA claims filed in federal court. At issue in the case, Landsman & Funk, P.C. v. Skinder-Strauss Associates, No. 08-3610, 2013 WL 466448 (D.N.J. Feb. 8, 2013), was a New York procedural law, C.P.L.R. § 901(b), which prohibits statutory class actions unless the statute creating liability explicitly provides for recovery in the form of class actions. The court had previously determined that the statute would apply under a choice of ...
The United States District Court for the Southern District of California gave its preliminary approval to a $17.1 million settlement fund in a class action brought under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA"), 47 U.S.C. § § 227 et seq. in Malta v. Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, et al., No. 10-CV-1290 BEN (NLS), 2013 WL 444619 (S.D. Cal. Feb. 5, 2013). In Malta, the plaintiffs alleged that one of the defendants, a loan servicer, violated the TCPA by calling the cellular phones of account-holders "without 'prior express consent,' using an 'automatic telephone dialing ...
In Tye v. LJ Ross Associates, No. 11-15195, 2013 WL 424765 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 4, 2013), the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan held that a high frequency of phone calls cannot alone prove a debt collector's intent to harass under 15 U.S.C. § 1692d, a provision of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA"). In Tye, the plaintiff-debtor brought multiple claims against the defendant debt-collector under the FDCPA, including a claim under section 1692d, which prohibits a debt collector from "engag[ing] in any conduct the natural consequence of which is to harass ...
The Florida Supreme Court's opinion in Pino v. Bank of New York, 38 Fla. L. Weekly S78a (Fla. Feb. 7, 2013) is an important opinion concerning voluntary dismissal of actions where fraud on the Court has been alleged by the Defendant. In Pino, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the Fourth District Court of Appeal, and held that a trial court lacks jurisdiction to reinstate a dismissed action to award sanctions for fraud on the Court, except when the fraud, if proven, resulted in plaintiff securing affirmative relief to the detriment of the defendant, and upon obtaining that relief, the ...
In Bandy v. Midland Funding, LLC, No. 12-00491-KD-C, 2013 WL 210730 (S.D. Ala. Jan. 18, 2013), the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama held that filing a collection lawsuit without first obtaining evidence to prove the claims is not a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA"). The Bandy defendant, a debt collection agency, filed suit in state court seeking to collect on a debt allegedly owed by the plaintiff. However, the debt collector's complaint allegedly did not contain any allegations supporting the validity of the debt, but only stated ...