A deluge has swept through U.S. bankruptcy courts of late. Consumer debt buyers—armed with hundreds of delinquent accounts purchased from creditors—are filing proofs of claim on debts deemed unenforceable under state statutes of limitations. This appeal considers whether a proof of claim to collect a stale debt in Chapter 13 bankruptcy violates the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA” or “Act”). 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692−1692p (2006).
We answer this question affirmatively. The FDCPA’s broad language, our precedent, and the record compel the conclusion that defendants’ conduct violated a number of the Act’s protective provisions. See id. §§ 1692(e), 1692d−1692f. We hence reverse the orders of the bankruptcy and district courts.
To decide this case, we must first examine the statute that governs Crawford’s claim: the FDCPA. The FDCPA is a consumer protection statute that “imposes open-ended prohibitions on, inter alia, false, deceptive, or unfair” debt-collection practices. Jerman v. Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer & Ulrich LPA, 559 U.S. 573, 587, 130 S. Ct. 1605, 1615 (2010) (quotation marks and citations omitted). Finding “abundant evidence” of such practices, Congress passed the FDCPA in 1977 to stop “the use of abusive, deceptive, and unfair debt collection practices by many debt collectors.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692(a). Congress determined that “[e]xisting laws and procedures” were “inadequate” to protect consumer debtors. Id. at § 1692(b); see Jeter v. Credit Bureau, Inc., 760 F.2d 1168, 1173 (11th Cir. 1985) (noting “that despite prior [Federal Trade Commission] enforcement in the area,” Congress found “[e]xisting laws and procedures” inadequate).
In short, the FDCPA regulates the conduct of debt-collectors, which the statute defines as any person who, inter alia, “regularly collects . . . debts owed or due or asserted to be owed or due another.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(6). Undisputedly, LVNV and its surrogates are debt collectors and thus subject to the FDCPA.
To enforce the FDCPA’s prohibitions, Congress equipped consumer debtors with a private right of action, rendering “debt collectors who violate the Act liable for actual damages, statutory damages up to $1,000, and reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.” Owen v. I.C. Sys., Inc., 629 F.3d 1263, 1270 (11th Cir. 2011) (citing 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(a)); Jeter, 760 F.2d at 1174 n.5 (“Most importantly, consumers were given a private right of action to enforce the provisions of the FDCPA against debt collectors . . . .”). To determine whether LVNV’s conduct, as alleged in Crawford’s complaint, is prohibited by the FDCPA, we begin “where all such inquiries must begin: with the language of the statute itself.” Reese v. Ellis, Painter, Ratterree & Adams, LLP, 678 F.3d 1211, 1216 (11th Cir. 2012) (quotation marks omitted). Section 1692e of the FDCPA provides that “[a] debt collector may not use any false, deceptive, or misleading representation or means in connection with the collection of any debt.”
The reason behind LVNV’s practice of filing time-barred proofs of claim in bankruptcy court is simple. Absent an objection from either the Chapter 13 debtor or the trustee, the time-barred claim is automatically allowed against the debtor pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 502(a)-(b) and Bankruptcy Rule 3001(f). As a result, the debtor must then pay the debt from his future wages as part of the Chapter 13 repayment plan, notwithstanding that the debt is time-barred and unenforceable in court.
That is what happened in this case. LVNV filed the time-barred proof of claim in May of 2008, shortly after debtor Crawford petitioned for Chapter 13 protection. But neither the bankruptcy trustee nor Crawford objected to the claim during the bankruptcy proceeding; instead, the trustee actually paid monies from the Chapter 13 estate to LVNV (or its surrogates) for the time-barred debt.5 It wasn’t until four years later, in May 2012, that debtor Crawford—with the assistance of counsel—objected to LVNV’s claim as unenforceable.
LVNV acknowledges, as it must, that its conduct would likely subject it to FDCPA liability had it filed a lawsuit to collect this time-barred debt in state court. Federal circuit and district courts have uniformly held that a debt collector’s threatening to sue on a time-barred debt and/or filing a time-barred suit in state court to recover that debt violates §§ 1692e and 1692f. See Phillips v. Asset Acceptance, LLC, 736 F.3d 1076, 1079 (7th Cir. 2013) (explaining that a debt collector’s filing of a time-barred lawsuit to recover a debt violates the FDCPA); see also Huertas v. Galaxy Asset Mgmt., 641 F.3d 28, 32-33 (3d Cir. 2011) (indicating that threatened or actual litigation to collect on a time-barred debt violates the FDCPA, but finding no FDCPA violation because the debt-collector never pursued or threatened litigation); Castro v. Collecto, Inc., 634 F.3d 779, 783, 787 (5th Cir. 2011) (collecting cases and indicating that threatened or actual litigation to collect a time-barred debt “may well constitute a violation of [§1692e],” but ultimately concluding that no FDCPA violation occurred because the debt was not time-barred under the applicable statute of limitation); Freyermuth v. Credit Bureau Servs., 248 F.3d 767, 771 (8th Cir. 2001) (same as Huertas, supra); cf. McCollough v. Johnson, Rodenburg & Lauinger, LLC, 637 F.3d 939, 947-49 (9th Cir. 2011) (affirming summary judgment in favor of the consumer after the debt collector filed a time-barred lawsuit to recover a debt).
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