to appoint special counsel to undertake the attorney general's duty of representing the state and the courts while the attorney general may appoint general deputies today special counsel remain in trickle to the office for example the office has only fifteen assistant attorneys general dedicated to courting the billions of dollars of state that's scattered across all media eight ohio counties the office necessarily must rely on special counsel  to be the front line lawyers to collect these debts yet the sixth circuit in this case held both that special counsel are not attorney general officers and may not use attorney general letterhead without risking my ability under the fair debt collection practices act that was mistaken for two basic reasons first the special counsel are state officers under that act and so they fall within the government exemption designed to protect government operations and  second special counsels use of attorney general letterhead accurately conveyed their relationship to the office and further the purposes of the act by putting the credibility of the office on the line and giving it a powerful incentive to monitor special counsel when they collect these debts so i'd like to begin first with the first question presented the officer question and the brits have gone back and forth on what officer can mean historically and on what it should mean for the act i think prototypical exempts debt collectors for the government and they are always outside of the private creditors through our judgment creditors so there are a core group of outside  outside of the creditor that is who are the prototypical examples well i wouldn't have expressed that more clearly i mean that's a big thing that you're saying that this state that collector is really going to be treated very differently the outside that collectors from the private and on the face of the statute the private in the state really are treated and exactly the same way there are two provisions they relate identically to each other and surely there were very clear ways of taking out the state outside that collectors you could have just said state debts are into debt for purposes of this statute or were state outside debt collectors are into debt collectors for purposes of the statute and y congress to none of those things rather congress adopted a set of provisions that seem perfectly parallel with respect to state and corporate entities so i disagree that they're perfectly trip parallel in these ways first prototypical officer can be ministerial officers like police officers or you understand the argument that you can read the same term two different ways the congress did use the exact same terms but it but ones in the private context and ones in the government context so i think by definition they have to have different meanings and number two inside out so you can see that with a creditor because when the creditor collects the creditor has to collect in their own name if you look at  a it says they're exempt if they collect in their own name and in fact when they don't collect in their own name and house creditors become debt collectors showing how the inhouse out outside was supposed to work for creditors because when you put your good with congress it made the choice with respect to creditors when you put your name on the line the creditor will likely have a repeat relationship with the relevant debtor and so good will wasn't enough to exempt nevertheless or an employee of something they made to work for tax purposes but we then look at a series of factors to determine whether they're really employees or not it's hard for you to argue these are very poorly school rect yes we don't do this totally without supervision in their actual debt collection correct well not totally without supervision i think that they are supervised by our standards and they have to that's a but you're not claiming they were employed when i did put in there so what other situations have we have for in any setting treated and someone who is called an independent contractor and officer of a company government agency anything so i mean it's a novel sort of i don't think i have is i certainly understand officers like with corporations with corporations officers are defined by their charter i think corporation these are the officers these are these from their responsibilities it may set an income scale of some sort or tell you which agency within the corporation is going to determine that and you have officers of state agencies that are defined by water but i've don't know that i've ever seen an officer defined by a contract so took two points i think the cost this analogy would be a comment on our g that the court reference large ski which were the special deputy sheriffs for a large skiff sided treatises treating special deputy sheriff so as the sheriff's appointed to undertake the sheriff studio for a particular task as officers within the meaning of resisting of officer statutes scale relied on that history and determining why the contractors in that case should be entitled to qualified immunity so i think that's the prototypical example and we're not aren't we're not arguing based on the contract with the second point would be if we were if all we had was a contract we to be here today for instance we have collections associations they're called third party vendors that we only contract with there is no statute we do not assert that they are officers or employees covered by this exemption they just contract with us to help us with our collection activities but was just for tracks collection this is not a tax collection cases i know the attorney general has read it as giving him more power than what it says on its face with putting that aside this is not a ta looking to common law or are you looking to our cases are you looking to some combination of the three i thought how would you prioritize as as as a hobby lobby suggested in the starting point when something is undefined is the dictionary act so i go when sometimes there are more of them and sometimes there are fewer of them and sometimes they deal with x many cases and sometimes they deal with why many cases and it's very fluctuating i don't think that matters because i think historically there were plenty of off offices that had indefinite numbers today for instance assistant u s attorneys have indefinite numbers and they get their duties from their superiors obviously i think in the same way and i still think that the special deputy sheriffs are the best historical example and those sheriffs were considered to be officers within the meaning of resisting of officers statutes precisely because they were true trying to protect government functions and i think that purpose analogy is pretty relevant here as well the point of this exemption is to protect government operations and the attorney general has been relying on special counsel to court these deaths since the time of the great depression the special counsel have always been been in the attorney general's office but that collecting duty has a growth there so why does your contract require them to comply with the because we're also the consumer protection branch office and we want our it's because we think that those are appropriate standards what we're concerned about are the realities and the remedies against to say well the remedy is against special counsel i think we're concerned for a large he goes through instead trying to give them immunity for their acts even though they may have preached we can get to that second question let's assume they breach the act just an assumption don't go crazy  you want to give them immunity for their contractual violation well it would be it would be a mutiny from the f t c p a a want to be immunity from other laws that would apply for instance their state officers or whatever law well for letters from those stats on our own letterhead an attempt to collect and house one that proves unsuccessful we go to third party vendors which are essentially collections associations which were that historically reason for this act their collections associations that they supervisors and make phone calls and that's basically what they do and that's the second step so most debts will go through this entire process and so they'll be contacted by both these collections associations and then the third step is special counsel and the reason why special counsel are generally the third step is because that's when litigation becomes a distinct possibility so you need lawyers and that's what special counsel are are here to done so that's that's generally how the process works and we've never we've never contested that collectors associations are officers within the meaning of the act and i think that gets back to the point that our position is not our position is not that all people collecting debts on behalf of the government are exempt our position is officers are and what the officers mean and there i think you should interpret you should interpret that broadly because that the purpose of that is not to interfere with government operations and i think this would interfere with our operations in the way the office has long collected the billions of dollars of state that it is required vs statute to collect and getting back to the subset of standards i do think that force has has full application here for why it decided qualified immunity was appropriate in the one nine hundred eighty three context i think the special counsel and the attorney general staff work closely together but then special counsel would be the ones left holding the bag because there's no dispute that the attorney general staff are exempt and so that would poll and the point about maybe it'll deter the temp talented individuals from collecting everybody agrees that these are vital government operations they're vital to the fiscal health of the state and that was a factor that for our city relied on and then i think the third factor that philosophy right relied on was just the distracting nature of damage the state and i think this again is exhibit a because imagine what will happen if this case goes to trial it's not just going to involve special counsel it will involve bar staff who have to respond to discovery and will likely have to testify about how the operations work so when they're so closely connected in that way i do think that it makes sense for the exemption to be interpreted with its purposes in mind and when you look at the purposes and look what will happen if this case proceeds i think that's a good indication that these people are officers and i think they  fall within the historical definition of officers the special special deputy sheriff i think is the most analogous example and there's plenty of cases that have treated them as as officers but you tell me what the definition  your man mr murphy because that seems a very similar kind of set up to your own there is a statute that allows a superior to appoint some people but those contractors are sometimes they're more said that prohibit agents were officers within the meaning of a statute that only allowed officers to execute search warrants and it said this in the morrow when it said congress were awkward officers so the court has repeatedly said that congress can use the word officer in a way that's to say that we take these cases whether it's true man or on your side heart well and we just put them in a different box exactly i got was a wee wee always copyedit hardwell by saying it was a constitutional officer faces but if they are constitutional officer i think by definition you should think that they're a statutory officer and factually i do think that the surgeon and your man was much more like the order of the surgeon your main was much more like the collection association that was the official duty and the surgeon all he did was assist in helping with the duty but when somebody else is actually delegated that duty like a tax collector delegates to a situation where the superior officer is actually delegating his authority to the inferior officer there the deputy and i think that's the symmetry that matters here that seems and if i understood you correctly that seems an odd line to draw it's the difference between delegating all of your delegate those official duties to the deputy could mr murphy address the second point with this is misleading sure and i don't i for i'll start at a high level and then get into the specific and in the course of th meaning of issue is to distribute in an official capacity when they send these letters they are distributing in them and their official capacity as special counsel to the attorney general and so it's fully appropriate for the office to be listed at the top in those relationship to the attorney general's office but the very fact that a private attorney can issue a court subpoena suggests that it's a tease can issue things through people other than independent contractor other than  essentially the same logic that this strikes me as as their true name when they are special counsel to the attorney general the attorney general is there to name its true name because there it distinguishes them when they're acting as special counsel for the attorney general and when they're acting as private counsel for some private for a creditor i mean they sign their name at the bottom and gave their law firm name was that necessary it was as a technical matter is necessary because that big money gets sent to limb so they have to necessary for compliance with the act i mean clarifies the relationship even more it might be perhaps a closer question if they hadn't but if they had just said special counsel i would say as a technical matter it's necessary because how statute says you can't authorize him to do it but we disagree with that view of the statute we think that the statute sets the first part of the statute says they shall use this letterhead and then the second set but only in we are think we interpret that statu not just this attorney general but several other attorney generals have interpreted the statute to require it in those tax contacts and to leave it to the attorney general and other contacts and they haven't challenge that a j one fourteen or one fifteen they categorically deny it and i think this turns a virtue into a vice by the way when they put out a letter head on there it shows to consumers that they can actually call with concerns if they have concerns with special counsel or if they have concerns with that but if there's no further questions i'd like to reserve the remainder of my time for  thank you mr chief justice and may it please the court your honor as both questions presented really revolve around a single point private debt collectors retained as independent counsel for or by a state attorney general are not state officers they are not the attorney general they are not from his office and they cannot legally hold themselves as being from his office when the consumer sees letterhead that says office of the attorney general she thinks the letter comes from within that office not from a professional debt collector with a personal financial stake in the outcome of the ensuing conversation congress saw the definition of debt collector which defines the acts coverage as quote any person who regularly collects debts owed another and then it seemed each of the two provisions that have gotten a lot of focus from general murphy's argument this morning the two provisions that provide carve outs one says that the act does not cover any officer or employee of a private business the other says the act doesn't cover any the debt collection act or not is a separate question which is it right that they're properly considered officers under state law because that is how the attorney general has designated them and use them it's absolutely no but your ski is a qualified immunity case for the risk you did not conclude that the people who got qualified immunity were officers it concluded that they got qualified immunity even though they were not officers just like in common about the dictionary act definition or the definition of common law collection special counsel are simply not officers even by does ignition of the attorney general and the attorney general has done everything point to you which is about whether it's a violation of the statute and it is a violation of the statute because i think in your hypothetical you're out of the letterhead is the law firm is on letterhead so  it's a violation of the statute in this context because they are using the true name of the attorney general as their own true name and in the context that you just described your honor they are simply referring to who the client is or who it is that is hired them so i really don't see the difference between those two situations but even to push the point a little bit further supposed to stay created a special seal  debt collection program of the state of ohio or something like that and they put that at the top of the letterhead with that be file ation of the statute again so now we're talking about the substantive provisions that i'm happy to ship there  i think it probably would not be i would have to know a little bit more about what the c e o says and whether it conveys to what we see all of the state of ohio and it says the program of special debt collection you i think that would be highly misleading it would violate the same provisions that we're talking about so i wouldn't be misleading what what would the recipient of that letter think that the recipient of the letter would not think the recipient received a letter from the actual office of the attorney general so i think the recipient of the letter would think the same thing that the recipient of this letter thinks so let's just turn to what the recipient of this letter thinks just common everyday experience when you receive all letter that says the letter head office of the attorney general you think that the source of the letter is coming from the true the from someone within the attorney general's office i'm not sure what difference it makes i mean it seems to me that a letter like this gives you two kinds of information one is it says you know some sum of money to the state and that's perfectly true and the other is that the person signing the latter is acting as an agent of the state to collect that sum of money and that seems perfectly true to so you know the letterhead is just a way of saying i'm acting as an agent of the state to collect a sum of money owed to the state and yes if you don't pay this sum of money the state is not going to feel all that good about you so it's  let's let's go to the text of the statute and congress was very clear about that the letters use a name the quote true name of the likely you can really be very serious about that because in justice ginsburg's hypothetical they were using the name of the attorney general to know your honor not one uses the name in the text one uses the name in the letterhead but both are designed to do the exact same thing which is to name and then what you can't do is use someone else's true name as your own the statute doesn't prohibit referring to your client or referring to the person who hired you in the text of the one of that's that's not using someone else's name that is correctly conveying information this is i thought that justice kagan asked you a functional question and you are responding with a formal answer and you may win on formal grounds but if we could go back to the functional point let's suppose ohio why do i have a different reaction to the former letter as opposed to the to the latter well you want to my answer is the attorney general's answer on pages four sixteen to seventeen  and pages page three thirty four the attorney general explains why he and various collectors want to use attorney general letter letterhead and they say it's because quote they want you there they want to quote get the debtor to prefer the debt with the state over and above his other debts the attorney general believes that this writer had communicate something that letterhead of wireless support all does not know you're not answering my question i wasn't asking you to compare the letter that was sent with a letter that makes no reference to the attorney general of ohio i'm asking you to compare and letter that is sent by an assistant attorney general is the only time hire people to do different things of more public servants i mean why would you think that i don't know i think is a public servant who i think is an officer or a contractor who were no average there and it isn't i have just used their name you know i said they hired me isn't that using their name it is not now if that's what the statute in english i'm not talking about in statute no your honor if that's what the statute meant that it would mean that you couldn't use the and if it means a misleading use i see nothing here misleading what is it also you want if there is nothing here misleading and it doesn't mean misleading use and it doesn't mean ordinary english use what does it mean you want to get a central the ones who misled who misled and congress was trying to make sure that when the consumer is talking to a debt collector they knew who they were precisely because the reputational interest of the attorney general's office or guarded by people within the attorney general's office in a way that debt collectors don't necessarily correlate the interests of the attorney general's office and in house i phones i would think that that would be a reason using heading because now the ohio attorney general is responsible for all the actions that the state collector is going to take and the ohio attorney general is going to be more vigilant in policing the actions of that when you don't have the letterhead then it could be some scam you say but when you do have the letterhead they're really getting themselves into trouble if this isn't a scam well just a spiral it gets back to the question you had when you made originally when general murphy was up here i mean that it can work to be that just because you are referring to someone's name in the letterhead you use their name because a section she talks about the that's that as long as yes you see my point but i see your point and what's the answer to my and the answer is congress made the decision i know that you know that embedded in your question is the assumption that there is a mat requirement built into the first provision but that is the first sentence but congress articulate a statute that said it is a violation to do any of the following things and when congress said it's a violation to do any of th things it's not up to the courts to override congress i don't think that this is a materiality question i actually do think that this is just a question of is a false or not is there anything false about using the attorney general's letterhead when you're an agent of the attorney general that's the question what so first just a point of clarification the attorney general's contract with these individuals says that they are not an agent but the direct answer to the question is were they obviously are an agent and or the the letterhead is a good way of release making the point i am acting for the attorney general you want to congress wanted individuals who were uncertain distributed to know who they were dealing with especially when they were dealing with a professional debt collector who gets a cut of the proceeds that they're dealing with somebody is acting for the attorney general they are yes they are but they are dealing with someone who's acting for the attorney general in a context in which congress was deeply concerned about how those individuals have the wrong incentive structures and will do anything to get their third of the proceeds but you're making the argument from what they are like the argument that you made in the brief they did or get the letter from the attorney general the only attorney general i'm really concerned they ought to be concerned because the state of ohio can garnish their tax for the unpaid debt it's different they ought to know that it's the congress wanted people to know that as consumers to know who they're dealing with but to answer the question it is simply not true that every debtor is better off paying the state stepped in some other debt the because the status of our patrol the state has very few powers i mean they have the power to take your lottery winnings they have but what i mean and most debtors actually don't have a lot of lottery winnings they have the power to take your income tax refund most starters do not expect anything tax refund anytime soon that's it the state has no additional power and it is actually misleading to try to convey to these individuals why i under the question to ask i think that anything important yes that is correct really did i understand you correctly you're saying we make a different judgment think congress is about the relative weight of how misleading th judgment congo that is exactly correct your honor congress made this judgment under very specific but under very specific terms the numerated violations congress said it's misleading to do th but i'm confused about your answer maybe the question or maybe both did you say as i understood the question you have letterhead it sounds fine in his basement and it's a private collector who is acting on behalf of filings basement is  misleading yes for exactly the reason that the attorney general conceded the concession was about i b m but the same exact point debt collectors are different from the from the creditors and congress wanted people to know with whom they were communicating thank you counsel if you're on  and he used maybe as a factual matter that he used the letterhead of the u s attorney's office i don't know in prosecuting cases when the federal government hires outside debt collectors to collect debts owed to the federal government  or could be a set of cases could last a year you know are all of the people who do that who feel that job it's not normally done federally could be i guess are they often cers or case and it's called special counsel for the last purpose of prosecuting murder cases for the next year or whatever they're not officer but i guess my bail answer is it's really up to the state and so you would look at how the state treats those people here if start stationery in our letterhead but that but it's the use of the letterhead doesn't isn't giving them any sort of sovereign authority doesn't give them any discretion to bind the states it doesn't create an office you know if you have nine special council one day and the use of single dose not just a connection with the individual doing the debt collection work in the attorney general you said there's no way and they've done everything possible to show there's no connection well i can't imagine anything they could do more dramatically to to show that there is a connection and say here use my letterhead i think you got to get the attention of you know what i meant is they've done everything possible in structuring the relationship between the special counsel and the office of attorney general to make sure that they are not a part of the office now with respect to using the respect to private creditors or public creditors it's clear that congress intended this statute to apply to independent contractors and it also intended to allow creditors whether private or public to use their own in house people or without being subject to the requirements of the act and so it's really totally up to the state if it's going to use its inside people then it doesn't have to comply with the f t c p a but when it hires outside third party contractors it does if i could just address what justice pryor was asking about the use of your true name i think if you thought about a form that's that i the reason that underlying disturbing me is there is a pretty well known scheme where people get phone calls from a person who identifies himself as somehow connected with the i r s and you better send them three hundred dollars or three thousand immediately to a certain post office box well or you might find yourself in jail ok now that's a scheme and if you get a letter out of the blue by somebody purporting to be an official person and there's nothing on the letterhead that suggests that you are such you might well think if you've at least had the experience i'm talking about but this is a scam and so what the purpose of this letterhead does is it in some indication to the recipient that it's not a scam and the rest of the letter makes clear precisely what it is so what i feel to see is that requires the contrary requirement in some form or other also i disagree that there's nothing misleading about it i think it gives the impression that the letter was issued by the office of the attorney general because there's a convention that when you see the letterhead that's signalling who the sender of the letter your interpretation of this law a piece of stationery that tends to indicate that the debt is the debt collector is indeed speaking for whom he reports to speak for anything that indicates creditor from outside third party debt collectors and so it has to be clear that he is not the creditor and so when they use the creditors letterhead that gives a false impression if they're worried that they're not going to be taken seriously they can include with the letter a separate letter from their from the credit is the position of the government of the united states that the attorney general of ohio the violation of this law you know that the special counsel and by you know that he's approved that he is stationed  a problem solving no but i think that that was the point of the law was to put the letterhead so they know to call the office and then we have the regular customer service hotline that they can call and talk they'll get it that's quite interesting because the only number that's in these letters is the number of the well that's right but by putting the letterhead on the is there anything in the contract for the debt collector when he receives a customer complaint he gives them the number of the customer there's not an obligation in the sorts of complaints but i think the reputational idea is also significant because when a g authorizes these individuals to use his letterhead that's a powerful incentive on the agency to order a g s office it also uses the word issues and so what about issues i think that just look at the way we're the only party that has actually cited the dictionary definition of the issue and the dictionary definition of issue is to distribute distribute it in their official capacity so when special counsel if you send these letters they are distributed in their official capacity as special counsel to the attorney general not as private lawyers with their private law firms i think that's an easy interpretation of issue that would authorize if we get to the second question we've already decided that these people are not officers stand independent does it mean for one person to issue something as opposed to the ohio do you think that you i do think that there are distributed in their official capacity as special counsel whether they're independent contractors officers or employees i think that's a separate get to decide who gets to use an attorney general's letterhead i think washington should be with the attorney general and that's fine but as far as i see isn't there one of these two cases where someone who wasn't  the special counsel signed the letter that's absolutely true but they've waived that argument is their theory of the case is that it's just the letterhead that's misleading and i can you can get into the facts of that issue that issue was this this person got a call from the person plaintiff the plaintiff asked for her balance she said the balance on the letter it says your per your request here is your balance and then the point of turned around and sued the individual after they requested for the letter so i think they've largely abandoned that