On June 23, 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States (“Supreme Court”) ruled that the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (“FHFA”) must be removable and that the tenure protections put in place by the 2008 Housing and Economic Recovery Act are unconstitutional. Specifically, the Supreme Court’s decision in Collins v. Yellen holds that the “for cause” removal provisions infringed on the President’s constitutional authority to remove the head of an agency with a single director.
However, the Supreme Court did not find grounds to set aside any of the ...
On June 14, 2021, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a one-line order stating that the Court was withholding issuance of the mandate in Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services, Inc. The appeals court’s April 21, 2021, published ruling in Hunstein sent shockwaves through the collection industry when it held that debt collectors who share information about consumers’ debts with collection vendors can violate provisions in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) aimed at protecting consumer privacy.
The withholding of the mandate was ...
In its 2016 decision in Avila v. Riexinger & Associates, LLC, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that an attempt to collect a debt that states the current balance owed but does not disclose whether interest and fees are accruing is misleading in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) Section 1692e. This decision created a cottage industry of lawsuits seeking to pounce on this seemingly technical violation in many businesses’ collection notices.
Recently, however, the Second Circuit has recognized exceptions to the Avila decision, most recently ...
The ruling by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Richard Hunstein v. Preferred Collection and Management Services, Inc. raises significant concerns for debt collectors who use vendors for mailing and other types of services that require the sharing of information relating to consumer debts. By ruling that such arrangements can violate the prohibition on sharing information about consumer debts with third parties under section 1692c(b) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA"), the panel’s decision has forced many debt collectors to rethink existing business ...
On September 4, 2020, the CDC issued a broad order temporarily halting evictions nationwide, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as its basis. 85 Fed. Reg. 55,292 (Sept. 4, 2020). The CDC determined that such a moratorium was necessary to encourage isolation and social distancing for individuals who might become homeless or forced to move in with a larger group upon eviction. Initially, the moratorium was set to expire on December 31, 2020, but has since been extended, currently set to expire on June 30, 2021. However, after a recent ruling from the United States District Court for the ...
In a decision that could throw the debt-collection industry into turmoil, on April 21, 2021, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals released its opinion in the case Hunstein v. Preferred Collection & Mgmt. Servs., Inc., No. 19-14434, 2021 WL 1556069 (11th Cir. Apr. 21, 2021). The crux of the opinion is the court’s holding that a debt collector faces potential liability under the FDCPA for transmitting a consumer’s personal information to any third-party not explicitly designated by the statute. The potential implications of this decision are far-reaching.
The underlying facts ...
When President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January, it is safe to bet that addressing the pandemic-related financial pressures facing millions of Americans will be at the top of his agenda. And in particular, the administration is expected to focus on consumer finance, which should give renewed energy and purpose to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency the Trump administration all but grinded to a halt.
Pursuant to a recent Supreme Court ruling that gives the President the right to remove the head of the CFPB at will, President-elect Biden will be able to select a new ...
On April 13, 2020, the District Court of Kansas in Hampton v. Barclays Bank Delaware, No. 18-4071-DDC-ADM, 2020 WL 4698476 (D. Kan. Aug. 13, 2020), joined the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits in holding that devices that exclusively dial numbers stored in a customer database do not qualify as autodialers under the TCPA.
The Plaintiff, Anthony Hampton ("Plaintiff"), asserted numerous claims against multiple defendants, including a TCPA claim against Marketplace Loan Grantor Trust, Series 2016-LD1's ("Marketplace"). Specifically, Plaintiff claimed Marketplace violated the ...
This summer has been jam-packed with Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) developments. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a decision finding that peer-to-peer text messaging systems were exempt from the statue’s reach, using certain language that may be helpful in arguing to exclude other types of technology.[1] The U.S. Supreme Court declared the statute unconstitutional in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, Inc.,[2] only to determine that the unconstitutional provision was severable, thus saving the statute and, in fact ...
On July 2, 2020, the Florida Supreme Court issued its ruling Jackson v. Household Finance Corporation III, et al., SC18-357, 2020 WL 3580036, and provided new guidance for record authentication under the business records exception to the hearsay rule. At issue in the case was whether or not a testifying employee properly authenticated business records maintained by HSBC with respect to a mortgage loan account. The Florida Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the lender resolves a split of authority in Florida on the quantum of proof necessary to access the business records exception ...