Case Title: Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC v. Casey Clougherty Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC

Citation: 

Docket Number: 2021 ME 20

State: maine

Court: Maine Supreme Court

Date: 2021-04-06T00:00:00Z

Document:
MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2021 ME 20 
Docket: 
Cum-20-157 & Cum-20-158 
Argued: 
February 9, 2021 
Decided: 
April 6, 2021 
 
Panel: 
MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HUMPHREY, HORTON, and CONNORS, JJ. 
 
 
PORTFOLIO RECOVERY ASSOCIATES, LLC 
 
v. 
 
CASEY CLOUGHERTY 
 
* * * * * 
 
PORTFOLIO RECOVERY ASSOCIATES, LLC 
 
v. 
 
RICHARD DOCAMPO 
 
 
CONNORS, J.
[¶1]  In this consolidated appeal, Casey Clougherty and Richard Docampo 
challenge the District Court’s (Bridgton, Woodman, J.) admission of integrated 
business records in the credit card debt collection matters against them.1  When 
these matters were decided by the trial court, our jurisprudence contained two 
                                         
1  Although these cases concern collection actions by a debt buyer, the recent amendments to the 
Maine Fair Debt Collection Practices Act do not apply because the debts at issue were purchased 
before January 1, 2018.  See 32 M.R.S. §§ 11001-11054 (2020); P.L. 2017, ch. 216 (effective 
Nov. 1, 2017) (enacting special requirements for collection actions brought by consumer debt buyers 
for debts sold on or after January 1, 2018). 
 
 
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conflicting interpretations of Maine Rule of Evidence 803(6) with regard to 
integrated business records.  The trial court admitted the records in accordance 
with the predominant evidentiary standard at the time.  Because we conclude 
that the trial court’s factual findings underlying the admission of the challenged 
records were erroneous, and given that we recently clarified the proper 
approach for evaluating the sufficiency of a foundation laid by a proponent of 
integrated business records in Bank of New York Mellon v. Shone, 2020 ME 122, 
¶¶ 1, 7-28, 239 A.3d 671, we vacate the judgments that the District Court 
entered in favor of Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC, and remand these 
matters for further proceedings. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  The following brief procedural history is drawn from the trial 
court’s records. 
[¶3]  On May 8, 2019, Portfolio filed a complaint in the District Court 
against Clougherty, seeking a judgment in the amount of $9,309.01.  The 
complaint alleged that Clougherty had opened a Capital One credit card 
account, that he had defaulted on that account, that Portfolio had purchased the 
debt, and that the balance was due and owing.  On August 30, 2019, Portfolio 
filed a nearly identical complaint against Docampo, seeking a judgment in the 
 
 
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amount of $7,889.06 for an alleged debt owed on a defaulted Synchrony Bank 
credit card account.  Clougherty and Docampo denied the allegations. 
[¶4]  On March 11, 2020, the trial court held back-to-back bench trials.  
Clougherty and Docampo did not offer any witnesses or exhibits at their 
respective trials.  Portfolio offered several documentary exhibits through the 
testimony of one witness—a records custodian employed by Portfolio. 
[¶5]  At Clougherty’s trial, Portfolio sought the admission of documents 
created by Capital One, including a Capital One customer agreement, monthly 
credit card statements, a spreadsheet containing information about 
Clougherty’s account, and an affidavit of Capital One’s vice president of loss 
mitigation stating that these records were kept in the ordinary course of Capital 
One’s business.  To establish the foundation, Portfolio’s records custodian 
testified that she had received training on Capital One’s business practices 
during a sixty- to ninety-minute conference call in 2011.  Although she testified 
that the training covered Capital One’s business process “step by step,” the 
witness could not recall all the steps and did not have any personal knowledge 
of how Capital One created, maintained, or stored its credit card account 
records. 
 
 
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[¶6]  At Docampo’s trial, Portfolio offered similar documents generated 
by Synchrony Bank.  Portfolio’s records custodian testified that she attended a 
one-hour in-person training session in 2015 on the business practices of 
Synchrony Bank, but she admitted that the training did not cover Synchrony 
Bank’s day-to-day record-keeping practices. 
[¶7]  Clougherty and Docampo objected to the admission of the 
documents created by Capital One and Synchrony Bank, respectively, arguing 
that Portfolio’s records custodian was not a qualified witness because she did 
not have sufficient knowledge of the original creditors’ practices for the 
creation and maintenance of their business records.  The court admitted the 
records over their objections and entered judgments in favor of Portfolio, 
finding that Portfolio’s records custodian was “a qualified witness given her 
experience and training.”  Clougherty and Docampo timely appealed.  See 
14 M.R.S. § 1901(1) (2020); M.R. App. P. 2B(c).  We consolidated the appeals for 
purposes of supplemental briefing and oral argument. 
II.  DISCUSSION 
[¶8]  In Shone, 2020 ME 122, ¶¶ 1, 7-28, 239 A.3d 671, we resolved a 
conflict between two interpretations of Maine Rule of Evidence 803(6), as that 
 
 
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rule applies to integrated business records, by reaffirming the approach first 
set forth in Northeast Bank & Trust Co. v. Soley, 481 A.2d 1123, 1127 (Me. 1984). 
[¶9]  The approach to integrated business records used in the 
proceedings at issue here, however, was the interpretation described in 
Beneficial Maine Inc. v. Carter, 2011 ME 77, ¶¶ 12-14, 25 A.3d 96, and its 
progeny.  The Carter approach required that the presenting witness have 
sufficient knowledge of the practices of both the business that created the 
record and the business that received it.  Id.  Based on that standard, the trial 
court erred in finding that Portfolio’s records custodian was a qualified witness 
because she was unable to describe with any particularity the record-keeping 
practices of the original creditors.  See Am. Express Bank FSB v. Deering, 
2016 ME 117, ¶ 12, 145 A.3d 551 (“[W]e review a trial court’s foundational 
findings to support admissibility for clear error.” (quotation marks omitted)). 
[¶10]  In Shone, we articulated that the Soley approach to integrated 
records “eliminates the need for testimony about the practices of the entity that 
created the record and shifts the focus to the record’s status within the 
receiving entity.”  2020 ME 122, ¶ 8, 239 A.3d 671.  Thus, “a record that one 
business has received from another is admissible under Rule 803(6) without 
testimony about the practices of the business that created the record, provided, 
 
 
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first, that the proponent of the evidence establishes that the receiving business 
has integrated the record into its own records, has verified or otherwise 
established the accuracy of the contents of the record, and has relied on the 
record in the conduct of its operations, and, second, that the opponent of 
admission has not shown that the record is nonetheless not sufficiently 
trustworthy to be admitted.”  Id. ¶ 1. 
[¶11]  Because the parties developed their respective records with a 
different evidentiary standard in mind, fairness requires that we remand these 
matters for further proceedings, which may include reopening the record to 
allow further argument or to take new evidence.  See id. ¶ 30 n.9; Ne. Harbor 
Golf Club, Inc. v. Harris, 661 A.2d 1146, 1152 (Me. 1995) (allowing the trial court 
to further develop the record on remand after announcing the adoption of a 
different legal standard than the one applied at trial).  The foundational 
requirements for the admission of business records contain a factual 
component, and that component is entirely within the province of the 
fact-finder.  See id.  Nothing in this opinion should be construed as intimating 
whether the business records at issue should be admitted as integrated records. 
The entry is: 
Judgments vacated.  Remanded for further 
proceedings consistent with this opinion. 
 
 
 
 
7 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Jonathan E. Selkowitz, Esq. (orally), Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Inc., Portland, 
for appellants Casey Clougherty and Richard Docampo 
 
Kathrine Audet, Esq., and Edward L. Zelmanow, Esq. (orally), Law Offices 
Howard Lee Schiff, P.C., Portland, for appellee Portfolio Recovery Associates, 
LLC 
 
 
Bridgton District Court docket numbers CV-2019-67 and CV-2019-121 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY