District Court Dismisses TCPA and FDCPA Claims Arising From Collection Agency’s Calls to a Non-Debtor
On May 11, 2011, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted a defendant debt collection agency’s motion for summary judgment dismissing plaintiffs’ claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”).
The plaintiff alleged that the debt collection agency violated section 227 of the TCPA by initiating telephone calls to plaintiff’s residential phone using prerecorded voices. Additionally, in support of her FDCPA claims, the plaintiff argued that the defendant engaged in conduct with the intent to harass the call recipient and otherwise used false and deceptive means to collect the debt. The parties did not dispute that the plaintiff was a victim of identity theft and that she was not responsible for the credit accounts that became subject to debt collection activities by the defendant.
In resolving the TCPA claims, the Court considered the exemptions from the TCPA under 47 C.F.R. §64.1200(a)(2)(iii) for telephone calls which are made for a commercial purpose but do not include an unsolicited advertisement or telephone solicitation and (iv) telephone calls made to any person with whom the caller has an established business.
After acknowledging the split in circuits on whether the exemption under subsection (iv) applied to phone calls erroneously made to a non-debtor, the Court ruled that it did not have to decide this question for purposes of the case because the exemption under subsection (iii) clearly applied. The telephone calls by the debt collector were made for a commercial purpose and did not include a telephone advertisement or solicitation whether they were made to a debtor or non-debtor.
Accordingly, the defendant’s telephone calls were exempted from the TCPA coverage.
The Court next addressed the plaintiff’s FDCPA claims and the debt collector’s argument that it is entitled to a summary judgment because the plaintiff could not show that the obligations in question were consumer debt. In support of her FDCPA claims, the plaintiff claimed that the debts were collected from an individual person, that the address associated with the debts was residential, and that the debt collector admitted that it treated the debts at issue assuming that they were consumer debts. Notwithstanding this admission, the Court rejected the plaintiff’s proffers regarding the nature of the debt as mere speculation and conjecture. Accordingly, the Court granted the defendant’s motion for a summary judgment on the plaintiff’s FDCPA claim.
A copy of the court’s opinion is attached here. Anderson v. AFNI, Inc., No. 10-4064 (E.D. Pa. May 11, 2011) (Dalzell, J.).
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