a caprio did you want to reserve any time sir yes about four minutes four minutes and yes go ahead important is that a couple very very bright rule decisions came out of there in the first one was that the court decided that for a consumer to disputed that that that deflate and to invoke the protection too equally effective means of contesting a ported that therefore the the letter here isn't  or write us at the above address this is an attempt to collect that any information would be used for that purpose when you read that sentence it basically is saying what if you feel that you do not owe this money meaning if you dispute this that you have one of two things the judge that's over the judge would say wait a second this guy's been charged this money and he wasn't even the person that's correct the underlining that has very little to do with the requirements of the  the debt collection letter a little blurb that said something to the effect that we request that you contact us immediately and talk to our collection assistance within thirty days it had nothing to do with disputing the dead book into privileges and the right act it simply instructed the climate but a debtor to go ahead and call an assistant and i would agree with that court on that issue but that's not the issue in this case the issue in this case is whether or not the consumer some type of safe harbor language some type of disclosure would have sufficed or they could have just taken that language out there was no need for them to put into the letter if you feel you do not hold this debt please call i mean what did it think was going to happen when you wrote a letter so by not disputing the debt in writing the consumer is not preserving his right to all the other information and he's entitled to go into responsibilities at the collect that the debt collector has to has to follow it's confusing between the front of  possible misleading if what they are saying but have two meetings one which is inaccurate and that's the case you are well suppose suppose your adversary said look judge every call that's made we for our purposes assume that they haven't weighed any of their rights you know and they don't assume that that's them well that would be fact specific and i would i would say that we would need to skirt around that issue and it's not proper to that's if that's the case it's not proper to the smiths that on the leave it is a hasn't been any discovery done on this issue but even if that were true it still doesn't hold that collect it doesn't have the option of rewriting  practices act to fit their business model they have to follow what the access is and the act said they have to give this information clearly and they cannot give it in a misleading fashion and for me to me that the hall is misleading why quite why can't we conclude on nature it's merely a way of trying to open up a lot of communication and they refrain from the foundation or they could have said they could decide that they could have say could have said that in the letter but they chose not to they could have said in the letter exactly what your honor just said but they chose to they chose to put something in the letter that leads the least sophisticated consumer to call rather than write ok because it's appropriate number and it's written in bold face and it's not even an option for them ok it's not an issue of whether or a and no matter how you read the letter especially the least sophisticated consumer they're going to read this letter and say oh you know what i don't think i owe this money what should i do well let me look at the letter the front of the letter is that this i going to do want to do things i'm going to call or i'm going to write because this letter isn't just an invitation to haul this since here is instructions instructions with a condition in the condition is that if you feel you don't hold is that we reverse what word for word purpose for reinstate the case can proceed with it or you asking for in a sense you're almost saying look i win or the liability on the basis of the pleadings well i think i we would just pick up where we left off and the answer has been filed discovery has not happened yet we need to do some discovery we need to prove class you know we're going to get faster patient and then we would move forward from there thank you thank you good afternoon your honour's my name is richard pryor on behalf of health care revenue recovery group which i will refer to as h r r g your honour's and we ask that the court affirm the decision of the district court in this matter the the this court can affirm the decision of the district court without having to address the issue of graziano in taking a look at the letter that's in question and front and you bald face the front of the letter yes your honor validation language and having a notice and clear in conspicuous notice there's no dispute this was clearly conspicuous notice as opposed to the rest of the document it's in capital letters phone number you want people to call hauling doesn't comply with the law of the circuit that's a problem how do you get around there are two things your honor let me first state that it is clear under the federal trade commission under the f t c p a the collection activity can continue this is sending a letter doesn't stop collection activity and there is a distinction between communication between a consumer and an agency trying to resolve the debt versus the consumer's desire to dispute the debt and i'll get into specifically what does that mean because i think it's very important that the court understand under the statutory scheme what is disputing understand said that the back is by itself all set out and it is in larger print but what's important in this is that if you look at section g sixty ninety two traditionally the statement says as written by congress that under section eight g eight three that it has to include include a statement unless the consumer within thirty days have to receive the spoofs the validity of debt any portion thereof the debt will assume to be valid now this court is determined in graziano that the that there is a waiting requirement that accompanies section three it further goes on and says that state within writing within the thirty day period that in order for the debt collector to obtain verification it also says that if if they do so in writing the consumer can obtain the name imagist of the original creditor when you go to section b disputed debts congress has set forth what happens when in writing you dispute the debt under section four section foth it already talks about what happens in section three which is this assumption that the debt is valid and i would submit to the court that the protections afforded to the consumer by section g about the assumption of the debt being value valid has little commercial impact whether the company or the collector assumes it to be valid or not to be valid is doesn't change the dynamic because in the relationship between the consumer and the collector however if in writing under sections is that the test whether it changes the dynamic or is that whether the lease of his to get the consumer understands his or her rights and understands that if they call that that's that that doesn't comply with the back of the nose or and it doesn't comply with  law of the circuit it doesn't matter your honor because the what the test here is is overshadowing so you have to ultimately come back to what are you what is overshadowing which is incurred somebody to ignore their rights and what is the result of that going to b g and all of the cases that talk about overshadowing is that conflict between one portion and is another question so if the requirement of in writing and inviting somebody to communicate with you is really in fact the question of the debt being assumed to be valid or not and we would have to apply that test of saying is it overshadowed by saying because it doesn't say whole if you don't know this debt this is a cause if you don't know this amount and i think that's an important word as well because amount could mean the dollar amount of the debt doesn't say if you want the debt if you don't think you owe the debt it's a call us if we can answer any questions you feel you don't know this amount so when you have the back of the sentence and let me just a package to t a four or they return and provide the name of the original creditor as in a file so a four five if you receive a written notice under a four or five the collector must cease collection activity and all of these cases the talk about verification and validation and overshadowing and they're all different in the reason then this circuit because of privacy on a witch which drags in a three but the refer to three so four and five the sis s a sion of collection activity has to be in writing but what i'm trying to get to is that in order to sis to cease collection activity which is the remedy that would be provid protection to the consumer you must provide it in writing anyway it is irrelevant whether you wish to dispute under a three by phone in other circuits or in this circuit in writing the fact is if you dispute in writing under a three and are not requesting verification or not requested that the waiting requirement is the automatic trigger and that is not confusing it is not overshadowing by that one sentence in the first page that that person still must provide in whiting in order to cease collection activity they still must provide it in writing that is not confusing it is not overshadowing and there is no  the lease sophisticated consumer still has to read the whole letter with care they still have to read it can't provide bizarre idiosyncratic when you read an opinion of this court already court and some of the coal face did and some of  you give any extra consideration to what we bowl face and from what you just put in fine print yes or no yes if there's a different army and the second portion of it is a product of your yes you are with in the second portion of that is because the word is overshadow just like the term undue influence in other areas of the law they can influence you can still have influence in  case but if a piece of evidence has undue influence something extra something beyond then it may become impermissible so the language is overshadow means to do something in a lot of these cases is to compel the consumer to ignore their sophisticated consumer that calling will suffice that you know whatever it is that they would have gotten from writing they can get from paul no the at no point to this letter tell someone not to call i mean not to write in fact it tells you at the end of that sentence to see the reverse side for important information and provides the language telling them to write if they want to affect the reading into it but you're the court as is and the statutory scheme suggests that the consumer understands that by waiting they are going to cease collection activity after thirty days within the thirty days are going to be able they're going to cease collection activity until they receive validation of the death so the situation is that no one has been told not to wait to have that protection afforded to them you are still it goes back to you are still entitle to be able to communicate with the consumer to collect the debt that process doesn't stop it doesn't cease until they provide a waiting that's the law so graziano doesn't change that they still have to provide the writing and in order for them to cease collection activity they have to provide a waiting car she could have called the consumer the day after they received this letter and said are you interested in paying the debt not a problem if the consumer on the phone said i'm not really interested in paying your or what can i do and so i really wanted to spew to that doesn't create them because they made initiated the call to sell them we've got to stop collection activity the letters clear you have to do it in writing and argy and any other agency is not prohibited from engaging in that back and forth dialogue to resolve the debt what this does is tell the consumer to stop collection activity they have to do it in writing it's on the letter it's not over shadowed the initial sentence and for those reasons the decision of the district court should be a firm  dispute that they have a right to dispute it and to in order for them to invoke those rights they have to do it by writing they cannot call ok and this concept that when they win that even if that even if the consumer rights to them consumer to collect the debt during that period twenty five k should but the consumer never gets a second chance to prevent that collecting from assuming a debt is valid if they don't respond properly within thirty days and that's in writing and king not over the telephone  the the back of the letter if it's problematic ok if not it is it's not that the from the letter overshadows it back because it does it's also misleading when you read the front in conjunction with the back and this least this ticket consumer should read it hopefully reads the entire letter and if they do it becomes even more confusing at the back of the letter does not state that it supersedes the notice on the front a letter the back of a letter does not state the follow these instructions and don't follow the instructions on the front of a letter the back of the letter doesn't say that