In Salcedo v. Hanna, 17-14077, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a consumer’s allegations that his receipt of a single text message was sufficient to maintain a claim under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), 47 U.S.C. § 227 et al. Salcedo filed suit as representative of a putative class consisting of former clients of attorney Alex Hanna. The class was composed of individuals who allegedly received unsolicited text messages from Mr. Hanna and his law firm over a four-year period. Specifically, Salcedo alleged that he received one multimedia text ...
In Davis v. Oasis Legal Fin. Operating Co., LLC, 18-10526, 2019 WL 4051592 (11th Cir. Aug. 28, 2019), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (“Eleventh Circuit”) affirmed a decision in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia (“District Court”) that denied the defendant payday loan lenders’ motions to dismiss and motion to strike class allegations. The plaintiffs, a class of borrowers, sued the defendant lenders, three entities operating as “Oasis Legal Finance,” in Georgia for violating the state’s usury laws. The Eleventh ...
On May 7, 2019, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“Bureau” or “CFPB”) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) to implement the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”). The full NPRM is 538 pages and can be found here. Among other things, the proposal attempts to set limits on the number of calls that debt collectors may place on a weekly basis, clarify how collectors may communicate using new technologies and require collectors to provide additional information to consumers to help them identify debts. The Bureau has set a deadline of Monday ...
On April 18, 2019, the Florida Supreme Court issued a surprise ruling withdrawing its January 4, 2019 opinion in Nationstar Mortgage LLC v. Glass. The Florida Supreme Court’s opinion, which reversed the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruling in a case of the same name, 219 So. 3d 896, discussed when a defendant in foreclosure can recover attorney’s fees under the attorney’s fee provisions found in loan documents after the defendant prevails on a standing defense.
Originally, the Fourth District Court of Appeal held that the borrower who prevails on standing by arguing the ...
Although courts across the country agree that “a plaintiff class should not be certified unless membership therein is ‘adequately defined and clearly ascertainable,’” the extent of what a plaintiff must provide to satisfy this “implicit requirement” to certification varies among circuit courts. See Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC v. Belcher, No. 18-90011, 2018 WL 3198552, at *3 (11th Cir. June 29, 2018) (citations omitted). For example, some circuit courts have construed the requirement to “mean[] a plaintiff must demonstrate an ‘administratively feasible’ ...
In Green v. Specialized Loan Servicing, LLC, 17-15681, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a consumers contention that his monthly mortgage statement should only seek his last five years of mortgage installments due to Florida’s five-year statute of limitations for mortgage foreclosure. The consumer sued his mortgage servicer under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) 15 USC 1692 alleging his mortgage statements were not only an attempt to collect a debt but also were deceptive because they sought debt that the consumer alleged was ...
The Florida Supreme Court released an opinion in Glass v. Nationstar, SC17-1387 with widespread implications in contract litigation, and mortgage foreclosure litigation in particular, as it relates to attorney's fee entitlement. In Nationstar Mortgage LLC v. Glass, 219 So. 3d 896 (Fla. 4th DCA 2017) the Fourth District Court of Appeal held that where a borrower prevails on the issue of standing, the borrower cannot utilize the attorney's fee provisions of the note and mortgage to secure prevailing party attorney's fees. The rationale for this decision seemed simple, if the ...
In an opinion issued today, Florida's Fifth District Court of Appeal joined other Florida appellate courts in holding that the five-year statute of limitations to bring an action to enforce a promissory note and/or mortgage does not prohibit a lender from collecting amounts more than five years past due.
In Grant v. Citizens Bank, N.A., slip op., Case No. 5D17-726 (Fla. 5th DCA Dec. 26, 2018), the Fifth District, sitting en banc, examined whether the trial judge erred in awarding to a foreclosing lender interest that had accrued more than five years prior to acceleration and the filing ...
In Swann v. Dynamic Recovery Solutions, LLC, No. 4:18-CV-1000-VEH, 2018 WL 6198997 (N.D. Ala. Nov. 28, 2018), the Northern District of Alabama dismissed a putative class action case alleging a letter seeking to collect a time-barred debt violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA").
The plaintiff, Susan Swann ("Plaintiff"), alleged that defendants Dynamic Recovery Services, LLC ("DRS") and Jefferson Capital Systems, LLC ("JCS") violated § 1692e and §1692f of the FDCPA. See generally id. Section 1692e prohibits debt collectors from "'us[ing] any false deceptive ...
For many of the claims asserted under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692-1692p (the "FDCPA"), courts are required to apply the "least sophisticated consumer" standard in evaluating the claim, an "objective" test that assesses the alleged violation from the perspective of the hypothetical "least sophisticated consumer." See Landeros v. Pinnacle Recovery, Inc., 692 F. App'x 608, 612-13 (11th Cir. 2017); see also Leonard v. Zwicker & Assocs., P.C., 713 F. App'x 879, 881-82 (11th Cir. 2017). But as the Eleventh Circuit again made clear earlier this month in Lait ...