with no intention to proceed to trial or to obtain the evidence necessary to prevail at trial and that effectively the whole point is to encourage a default judgment of any of these cases and after a time of filing cause someone to pay or to negotiate or to do something certainly all these cases the defend you know that the consumers had retained retained counsel and in some cases had taken time off work to attend what was supposed to be a trial date to travel down to the daily center from every day you know where they lived to attend a trial date and in each of these cases save i believe too then all of these have a pretrial concerned setting a trial date and all that that's correct so there's engagement there's there's a discussion with this is all time consuming and setting a calendars so  whenever denied the amount was pretty obviously if they didn't owe the money they would maybe talk to attorney or not show up or something but whatever else it is this process and collection seems to have several segments you know what their records show for purposes of pleading or just officially proper complaint even if they had a legitimate basis to file the lawsuit by never intending to see it through to its debtor comes through the back door of the court dragging an oxygen tank with the tubes up her nose and huffing and wheezing and says you know i have recently been diagnosed i am sick i can't work i don't have enough money to hire an attorney but here i am from my trial and the plaintiffs says judge you know we're going to move to dismiss are you indicating that that cult debt collector falls into the category of people that you're talking about here well it would depend on whether you actually got that case through to discover you think you know that so it has probably not i mean probably not i think that there are legitimate reasons to nancy the case but when you file a lawsuit specifically intending not to go to trial again don't how do we know that they're specifically intending not to go to trial and houston there are a million reasons to dismiss a lawsuit that they don't have any reek about them right but i think you know again infer from the conduct that you know especially in situations where before trial and a lot of these cases documents are produced you know in the small claims courts in illinois you've got to sort of show what you have before him for trial we some j  in other cases i've worked on not these specifically where these types of claims have gone into discovery you do get into records that that buyers have little say no witness  bad no documents no affidavit filed suit anyway you know that kind of stuff and then once they figure out who the judges or whatever other reason you know maybe they just didn't get the default they wanted they non  where the vast majority of people are probably up in default thought that out these are cases where people go in front of a judge or says well do you deal with money and if they answer yes cases over you know we're talking about a situation where bad faith when they could have gotten an easy win and they dish didn't well i think that you know if you don't intend to go to trial right by setting a trial date and make someone miss work and come down for their trial it seems to me to be a period it's not that the first time these cases are up if you're not the fault for not showing up on the first day the judge will ask you know do you agree on the money say no tragic it's sad to say yes you're done so that intentionally they don't really want to go to trial it's been a long time since i try to keep but i know there are times when you get a call the night before and it really some people don't want to go to trial like the other lawyer  several you know that's always crummy because you work hard to get the case to trial and times it's hard to do civil but in small claims court it's different deal with a lot of cross a lot of you know people who can this is critical of a process that seems to be totally legitimate legal well but i believe you know and i you know the court this court has said it sways you mad one that there's nothing unusual about requiring compliance with federal law and also a state law so something that complies with stay alive filed my lawsuit i have a right to non suited me and those are things that happen i think there are situations where it's completely plausible that the case was file faith with the intent to go to trial and maybe something happened to you want to but you but i think it's possible in discovery once you file the lawsuit you know it under the c p a you get the records and you see if you can prove it out factually it's more is it is or a claim and they only pay ten bucks for a thirteen point well then that's a good question and that's kind of the intent piece that we're talking about is that you can infer this lack of untaet because why wouldn't you go to trial why specially when you're saying you have the documents to prove it why wouldn't the trials trial the defining point are you saying that the collector could not in good faith file a small claims complaint in the hopes of collecting some discovery that would would make sure that you know they actually did have the claim they thought they had or in the hopes of negotiating when this is dead or have been intractable up to now and so they're hoping that by bringing the case they can get some negotiating leverage you're saying that those are bad faith actions why is it trial because i mean frankly in almost any civil suit that you can imagine you've probably got a plentiful hopes deep in the back of their mind they don't have to go to trial and they don't want to spend the money they don't want to spend the time they're hoping something mediation settlements not come out of the woodwork and keep them from having to go to trial so wise wise trial and whether they intend to go to trial the defining point well because these are cases where the deck letters holding out the entire time they can prove their case when in fact they never intend to so you've wasted a person's time off of work at least twice some of the koreans would say if they owed the money are they wasting their time leaving work to defend well i mean they're losing weight just to leave in order to find it but you have all admitted they all the money well not the not the stage of the small claims case that we are looking at a system that weighs heavily against the consumer in small claims collections and their debt collection practices act do you think really invision the fact that legitimate let's say there's a settlement that occurs you know in the consumer settles for half of what's a that's a meaningful attempt to engage in something but when these are separate trial on they don't do anything other than you know bluster as if they're going to proceed to  be a productive what would that that is the you know i'm not saying people should be able to sell lawsuits what i'm saying is that when you file a case if you can't prove it and you know it or if you never intend to prove it you know it so that brings you back to what in this record other than dismissal tells us that these people knew at that moment that they were these agencies knew at the moment that they filed this complaint that they could not prove their responding to a motion to dismiss with we're going to a man and then announce it oh yeah for sure we have judge we have all these documents we swear we have all our docs were and the complaint will show you and i don't or if you had all the docs and  may please the court my name is catherine wyler and i represent defendant apple e unified in this matter i am also presenting argument today on behalf of all of the defendants we ask that this court affirm the district court's ruling on all of the orders before this court because the plaintiff simply cannot articulate an f t c p a violation for the conduct alleged in this case i'd like to start with questions which were raised i believe by all of the corporate particularly by you judge me and union by you judge pepper related to ownership of the debt who owned the debts in the case and what does the record tell us about ownership of the debts and the allegations in this case there is no dispute in this case that the plaintiffs owed the debts at issue and there is no allegation in this case that any of the defendants acted by filing these state court lawsuits in bad faith that is not the issue before this court and that distinction is what separates this case from any other case that ha been cited in the papers which discuss the conduct that is alleged in this case this case concerns only a single question whether or not it can be a violation of  file a lawsuit on a debt without intending to proceed to trial and as you asked judge pepper what is the magic time for the alleged violation of courting to the plaintiff the magic time is the moment the lawsuit that under the law is not a violation of the f t c p a and under illinois law that is not the requirement which drops into place on filing of a lawsuit a plaintiff is entitled to file a lawsuit in good faith and at any time thereafter that plaintiff is the owner of the complaint that plaintiff masters the complaint and if the plaintiffs elects not to proceed in litigating that complaint the plaintiff has the absolute right to voluntarily dismiss that complaint that is not unfair or an abuse of process it is not unfair or abusive to litigate within illinois established rules it is instead entirely expected that is why the process exists in the manner in which it exists there can be no violation of the f t c p a a in this case where there is no violation of any illinois cleanings requirement the pleadings at issue here all complied because they were all voluntarily dismissed before the case went to trial that's not an f d c p a violation that's just a natural progression within an illinois state court proceeding in some cases not in all cases certainly in some cases there may be a trial in some cases there may be a determination that the case is going to settle there may be negotiations there may be a nonsuch there may be a situation like the one you described judge pepper in which the plaintiff looks at the defendant and says we will have compassion we are not going to proceed with this claim any of those situations are entirely appropriate and allowed under illinois law the plaintiffs in this case is arguing it does not matter it does not matter that that is allowed under illinois law it makes absolutely no difference that in fact resolution prior to trial is the policy of courts of the entire country in illinois and in in this district in the circuit in this federal system the plaintiff is arguing no matter what at the time a debt collector files a lawsuit that debt collector is required to intend to go to trial and if that intent does not exist the debt collector has violated the f t c and further the plaintiff is arguing the only way to be able to identify the debt collectors intent if enough the c p a claim is filed in this court is to get past the pleadings phase and to go into a summary judgment argument that means on its face any time a debt collector files a case in state court and that case as a result prior to trial there exists an f d c p a claim which can proceed beyond the pleadings phase in this court that is the rule that the plaintiff is advocating here that is not the law and indeed the language of the f t c makes clear that is not the law the language of the provision at issue it's sixteen ninety two five states simply that a a plaintiff cannot a debt collector cannot threaten quote to take any action that cannot legally be taken or that is not intended to be taken or the intention of filing a lawsuit is simply to litigate the case it is not to take the case to trial and again this is a question the us judge pepper what is your intention at the time you file a lawsuit what is the defining point of when a party expects to go to trial litigation is a continuum filing a lawsuit starts the beginning of that process it does not of itself mean that the party who has initiated those proceedings intends to go all the way to trial it simply means that the party who has filed the complaint intends to avail itself of the process available might make a change of that or win the lottery it may judge and in fact that's a great point because at that point if the debtor says i'm going to pay the lawsuit i'm going to satisfy the judgment consent judgment there's no need to proceed to trial under the rule espoused by the plaintiff in this case there would still exist  ph claim an alleged violation that could get to the summary judgment phase that is not the rule under the statute it is not the rule in state court and fundamentally it is not the policy that exist under the f t c p a a judge easterbrook said in bell or versus black asimilar there is no trickery in taking legal action that is the issue here there is no trickery in filing a lawsuit that the plaintiff the debt collector is allowed to take that the debt collector is allowed to file to try to craft a rule that requires that any time a debt collection suit resolves before a trial there exists an f t c p a violation would affect the courts because the courts would be inundated with cases that are required to proceed to trial and the district courts of this circuit would be inundated with cases alleging  consumers would be terribly prejudiced by this rule because there is absolutely no ability for a debt collector to settle with a plaintiff or to show compassion to a plaintiff or to non suit or to voluntarily elect to forego the rights that  collector has available and yet buyers don't want these claims to go to trial necessarily because buyers want to have the flexibility of making determinations about whether the cost benefit allows for going to trial or whether it makes intended to proceed to trial if they intend to do that and then at some point settle that's using litigation properly we're seeing here is people taking a system and using it in such a way as to cause you know coerce people into either to follow judgments or bring them into court rooms where they're going to be asked leading questions that women don't even know they're under oath and genocide against them and maybe that's a problem with how we collect and state cases is that at the time it was filed there was no attention to proceed forward which is something that can often be proven after discovering that you don't know what's in the mind of the the collector until you look at the records so that we