In Castellanos v. Midland Funding, LLC, 15-CV-559 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 4, 2016) the United States District Judge John Steele joined with several of his Middle District of Florida colleagues and held that the Bankruptcy Code preempts the FDCPA with respect to filing time-barred proofs of claim. In Crawford v. LVNV Funding, LLC, the Eleventh Circuit held that filing a time-barred proof of claim in bankruptcy court violated the FDCPA. 758 F.3d 1254, 1262 (11th Cir. 2014) cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 1844 (2015). To the contrary, the Bankruptcy Code permits creditors to file proofs of claim without ...
In Garfield v. Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC, 15-527 (2d Cir. Jan. 4, 2016), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals examined whether a debtor who has been discharged in a bankruptcy can sue in a district court under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA"), as opposed to seeking relief in the bankruptcy court. During her bankruptcy, the debtor paid the arrears on her mortgage, and agreed to make monthly payments to forestall foreclosure. After receiving her discharge, the debtor ceased making payments. Within months her arrearage totaled over six thousand dollars. The lender ...
In Jenkins v. Midland Credit Management, Inc.,[1] the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Alabama held that the filing of a proof of claim based on a time-barred debt cannot give rise to a claim for damages under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA"), reasoning that any such claim is precluded by the Bankruptcy Code's comprehensive claims-allowance procedure. The court further held that the filing of a proof of claim on a stale debt does not merit sanctions under Bankruptcy Rule 9011 where the proof of claim is filed in compliance with the Code. Accordingly, the ...