Every week, courts around the United States issue decisions addressing aspects of civil UDAAP claims. In an effort to illuminate the UDAAP standards, below is a sampling of some of this week’s UDAAP decisions on the meaning of unfair, deceptive, and abusive.
Unfair or Deceptive
A debtor could not state a claim for unfair or deceptive practices under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act when he alleged that a debt collector had unfairly and deceptively filed a debt collection suit at the main downtown courthouse instead of at the branch courthouse twenty miles nearer his home. The downtown courthouse was a proper venue, and the case could have been transferred to the branch courthouse on request. Moreover, his suit was barred by Illinois’ absolute litigation privilege. Mehra v. Law Offices of Keith S. Shindler, Ltd., United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Unfair
Debtors could not prove that it suffered any actual injury when a debt collector called them 130 times over six months, and thus was not entitled to a judgment for violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. Modica v. Green Tree Servicing, LLC, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Deceptive
A debt collector’s false statement that it mailed a subpoena to a debtor’s home instead of his lawyer did not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) because the false statement was not material. Nor did the debt collector violate the FDCPA by mailing the subpoena to the debtor’s lawyer, in violation of federal procedure, since the debtor’s lawyer would not have been deceived by the error. Simon v. FIA Card Services, N.A., United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Note that this Weekly UDAAP Standards Report serves to highlight only some of the many weekly developments in the law around these standards.
Please feel free to contact me for more information or to discuss these cases or any other UDAAP developments.