we have one case on the argument calendar and i see counsel here good morning to both of you we'll start with court wise versus a mess and that's thank you to in crew interest and fees what degree of specificity is required under six hundred ninety two g the initial dunning letter in order accurately state the balance in this matter the initial collection letter states that the balance to is a total of principal interest penalty fees and costs and then they took from those numbers they derive a total upon receipt of this letter when the letter is opened by misc or wise the balance as stated is inaccurate because the balance was only accurate were presumably accurate at the time of its printing the water doesn't provide any if it fails to provide a date forward in which a debtor could commit payment to their creditor know that it satisfied the payment of their obligation in f have the the original contract that the debtor signed under which the debt arose and know what the interest rate is and what the how the penalties accrue and so perhaps but in most circumstances people don't have that documentation remembering your honor that the purpose of the f t c is to protect the most vulnerable people in our society so the standard of review for this court and for all courts as to a violation is using the we sophisticated consumer standard i think at least risky to consumer and the press and you know in dire financial straits and that person gets a notice pay five hundred dollars that's what it went to crew to up until the day that the letter sent plus principal interests penalty fees and costs that will continue to prove if that person then sends in a check for one hundred fifty dollars the person now is three hundred fifty dollars and so does the does the creditor have to calculate and knew what the penalties will be and what the interest is going to be i mean gets very complicated your honor i don't believe so i mean if we look at our typical experiences in receipt of a credit card statement from a bank your original lender it will provide you with all the carlin sorry in terror you quoted and i quote in carlin we explain that a collection notice fails to satisfy six hundred ninety two two g if you will misinformation allowing that we sophisticated consumer to determine the minimum amount she owes at the time of the notice what she will need to pay to resolve the debt at any given moment in the future and an explanation of the fees and interest that will cause the balance to increase but that is if you  well the letter could have either either of two different approaches it could either have the information that this court took note of in a villa from the jones case where provides the debtor it consumed with the ability to calculate how much they'll oh so when they open the letter it's ten days since it was printed they know ok we can send this amount in required you could do that but we've never required it to satisfy the statement of the amount which was a seven circuit g case would satisfy b and that was the exact quote we hold that it satisfies the there is no holding other than carlin as a relates to g and carlin talks about more specificity and more information that the debtors entitle to to accurately state the balance in carla and there was no statement of the debt as the date of the letter it was a payoff statement and it was all about the future actually if that carlin had was a cover letter from the law firm davidson and frank and behind that it had a payoff statement from bank of america which had an extensive amount of disclosures as to how the balance was changing over time that it was actually fairly well informed busy that statement this letter by example in core wise has none of that information there's no suggestion whatsoever as to where fees and costs are being calculated how they are being calculated how interest is accruing how fast is it accruing the only thing we have in this letter is a partial adoption of some of the verbiage from the villa it doesn't even have the entire village safe harbor it doesn't have if you send us a check in this amount will notify you that it may not satisfy the stat it doesn't have a mechanism for the debtor to call in to obtain the correct balance nor with a phone number for that purpose owe or alternatively a window of time in which the balance that they're sent in the letter would still be the full balance in order for them to make a payment and know that they satisfy the debt neither of those would be taxing obligation upon creditors i mean if we harken back to this court's decision in a villa they said it's no great chore for davidson think another debt to revise their standard pay off statements to clarify the amount due the basis for fees or simply some information that would allow that we sophisticated consumer to deduce the amount that they actually oh we're here asking for the same thing exact same thing but in the context of a g lette it's even more important the f t c p a can't require a debtor to have to guess how much they owe thank you thank you the other side at the same time no one who got this letter could know how to discharge the debt you would agree court i mean satisfied they would not know how to satisfy th that what they sent in these rolling charges they would get another letter that would say well you know you sent that amount of money but you know between the interest in the penalties and the fees and the cost it's another thirty nine dollars an eighteen cents and that's going to go up as well according to interest and penalties and fees and costs you send the check for eighty nine dollars and you are going to end up  being that that particular provision we're dealing with a six hundred ninety two g and that says a debt collector must state the amount of the debt on the date of the initial community it doesn't set out specifically but says you must provide the amount of the debt in the initial communication which  we would contend and it comports with this court's prior decisions that that literally means the balance so that as of the date of the letter as of the dated letters yes wrote and letter gets delivered two days later it's theoretically more than that yes around in fact it's definitely more yes are on it and so and i'm going to take my argument little bit out of order here so it's our contention that actually providing these detail disclosures would do more harm than good what the appellant is really asking for is you must provide every single way this date this debt may increase in the future such that a consumer a stent simply could you know calculate out the amount of the debt and say well when i send in my letter i know that when it gets there this amount will satisfy the debt and your honor i would argue that that would not help in this situation again the f t c p a is meant to accommodate the least sophisticated is the problem that if you are required to do something like that absolutely correct each contract is different interest and fees accrue at various intervals some fees or some interest rates are fixed many are tied to some are variable and so that would be a constantly moving target and so i think the main thrust of my argument here your honor is that if we were to provide these detailed disclosures the least sophisticated consumers simply not going to be able to calculate the provide contact information so that the consumer can get the amount owed if and when they wish to make a payment and they can call on your honor's that's something that happens every single day with credit recently considered in a tail end the taylor case oftentimes creditors will waive interest and fees and so if a debt collector says your debt is going to increase at this rate and this amount intervals these fees will be applied well once those fees are waived or that interest is waived well now that the debt collector has a problem if you know the i'm sure the plaintiff's bar will say well you know you just accurately stated the amount of the debt you scared because you stated that these fees  court also expressed concern that requiring debt collectors to disclose this information might lead to more imbues of practices as debt collectors could use the threat of interest in fees to coerce consumers into paying their debts and this is a legitimate concern  alleviate it we adopt the safe harbor approach adopted by the seventh circuit miller and again that language is here is the amount of the debt on the dead letter that amount will increase if you'd like to know the date of the amount of the debt on any particular date please give quiet in the statute that you include the phone number i don't think there is i i think it's it may very well solve your problem on the other hand the law that you have to argue for is that a letter that just says on the date of this letter you know this amount plus there will be fees and interest and everything else accruing and if you leave off the phone number no one's going to know what provide the contact information a phone number in our letter and you know i can't speak to every debt collector but if i assume that most debt collectors to the extent they're looking to make contact with the consumer get a payment they're going to minutes i can't speak to every single debt collector but you know they're there to accept the payment and i assume they get less calls than the cable company so your honour's if i may i just want to ad it's clear that six hundred ninety two g was instrumental in the court's decision for starters in the lower court the plaintiff argued that sixteen night that the collection letter violated sixteen ninety two g and sixty nine to you by not clarifying that the amount of the debt would increase in the court's decision in a v in this court's decision in a view made clear that sixty ninety two g and it says requires disclosure only of the amount of the debt not the amount of the debt plus nothing a debt collector says is false or misleading here not providing detailed disclosures is not false and misleading and if i can back up the score to said that statement is false if it would lead a consumer to believe some interpretations one of which is false there's nothing there's no way that consumer could interpret this in a way that is false simply because it has it doesn't have these details disclosures there's nothing false about that what they're requesting is more information not that the information you provided is in any way false and your honour's i'm just going to wrap up here unless you have any questions the district court held that the despite the detailed disclosures that the appellant advances here are not required by someone to analyze the contract or to get a lawyer to determine the amount of the balance respectfully we deal with this issue as society all the time consumers are protected by federal statutes designed to give us the information for us to make informed decisions it's the reason why your bank gives you all the information on your credit card statement on your four mortgage statement on your bank accounts the f t c is a consumer protection statute it's designed to protect the consumers from this exact issue so they don't need to get a lawyer to calculate their balance that if somebody is demanding payment from them their advisers to that amount will have three points out all these letters contain phone numbers now if the if a letter went out like this one didn't have a phone number on it i think i have a problem with it but it has a phone number on it and they're answering phones and you call up and you say what what do i  write a check how much to have to write today but i can assure you they say four hundred sixty three dollars and twelve cents i can assure you your honor if you were to dial the phone number to call your debt collector the phone conversation would not start and with what your balances it would be far more extensive than that and you couldn't just dial a computer to get your current balance they would put you through the wringer in attempting to collect it because that's their job it would be improper honor i believe that the reason why there is a six hundred ninety two g requirement that a letter be sent within five days of the initial communication is that the consumer has something that tells them what they need to pay not a verbal not a promise on a phone that they don't have a recording on but the equivalent of an agreement that if they remit that amount to satisfy their obligation that's sixteen ninety two g s purpose otherwise you couldn't describe purpose otherwise they just could call you on the phone and just tell you what your balance is in any given moment and the debtor would have to accept that without having any recourse whatsoever otherwise what is the purpose of six a lot of questions i am answering a question saying that either the statute requires a amount certain for a period of time this is a reasonable period of time to quote the language from taylor that you know that you can send that check in and satisfy your obligation or the mechanism to do your own calculation as to the amount to using the standard that was discussed in a villa under the jones case this is the amount  diem that adds on to your debt it's a pretty easy calculus at that point days times amount new could figure out how much you owe one of the two your honor thank you thank you both the reserve decision the cases smith versus town of