Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_08-cv-01491/USCOURTS-azd-2_08-cv-01491-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 15:1692 Fair Debt Collection Act

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NOT FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Bryon Nichols, 

Plaintiff, 

vs.

GC Services, LP, 

Defendant. 

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No. CV-08-01491-PHX-FJM

ORDER

Plaintiff Bryon Nichols brings this action against defendant GC Services claiming

violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692-1692p.

The court has before it plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment (doc. 68), defendant’s

response (doc. 80), and plaintiff’s reply (doc. 86). We also have before us defendant’s cross

motion for summary judgment (doc. 70), plaintiff’s response (doc. 82), and defendant’s reply

(doc. 89).

I.

In January 2008, defendant began contacting plaintiff on behalf of the Department of

Education to collect on a federal student loan in default. Plaintiff claims that defendant failed

to send him a written notice after this initial communication as required by § 1692g. Over

the next five months, defendant called plaintiff at work a number of times. Plaintiff, a supply

store salesman at the time, says that defendant continued to call despite being told to stop

Case 2:08-cv-01491-FJM Document 91 Filed 10/27/09 Page 1 of 7
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1

 Plaintiff is a “consumer” with a “debt” and defendant is a “debt collector” as defined

by the FDCPA. See 15 U.S.C. 1692a.

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because the calls were getting him in trouble with his employer. He claims that these calls

violated § 1692c(a)(3) because defendant had reason to know that plaintiff’s employer

prohibited such communication. During several phone calls, defendant brought up wage

garnishment, the offset of federal tax refunds, and litigation. Plaintiff alleges that these

actions either could not legally be taken or were not intended to be taken and that he was

threatened with them in violation of § 1692e(5). Plaintiff also claims that defendant

contravened § 1692c(b)’s restrictions on third-party communications by contacting his

coworkers, girlfriend, son, and mother. On June 13, 2008, plaintiff allegedly mailed

defendant a notice to stop contacting him. Plaintiff claims that defendant failed to do so, thus

violating § 1692c(c). Defendant’s phone calls eventually ended in July 2008 after a letter

from plaintiff’s counsel.

Both parties now move for summary judgment on the five FDCPA claims mentioned

above. Defendant also moves for summary judgment on plaintiff’s additional invasion of

privacy claim.

II.

The FDCPA protects people with consumer debt from “the use of abusive, deceptive,

and unfair debt collection practices.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692(a).1

 In order to protect “the gullible

as well as the shrewd,” debt collector behavior is measured against a “least sophisticated

debtor” objective standard. Clark v. Capital Credit & Collection Servs., Inc., 460 F.3d 1162,

1171 (9th Cir. 2006). The FDCPA is also a strict liability statute. Id. at 1176. Thus, the

primary focus in evaluating plaintiff’s FDCPA claims is on defendant’s conduct, and not on

plaintiff’s state of mind or defendant’s reasons for acting.

Plaintiff first claims that defendant failed to send him a debt validation notice. The

FDCPA requires debt collectors to send a written notice within five days of initial

communication with a consumer containing information about the debt and how to dispute

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and verify it. 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(a). The notice need only be sent to the consumer. Actual

receipt is not required. Mahon v. Credit Bureau of Placer County, Inc., 171 F.3d 1197, 1201

(9th Cir. 1999). Defendant contends that the requisite notice was timely mailed on January

24, 2008 to plaintiff’s address of record, his mother Pamela Mink’s house on Harvest Street

in Mesa, AZ. Plaintiff concedes that he accepts mail at the Harvest Street address, but he

denies receiving the validation notice. Both parties detail defendant’s automated mailing

process by which letters are requested by collectors around the country and then generated

and sent from Houston, TX. However, they dispute the degree to which defendant’s account

detail listing shows where plaintiff’s notice was sent.

Plaintiff contends that defendant cannot show where the notice was sent because

defendant apparently overrode the account address as of January 2008 with plaintiff’s thencurrent address on Emerald Avenue in June 2008 and then with plaintiff’s counsel’s address

in July 2008. Defendant explains that the account detail listing preserves the former address

when it is changed, which is why the Harvest Street address is listed in the notes on June 20,

2008, the day the address was changed to Emerald Avenue. See DSOF, Ex. A at 7. We note

that the “nearby” addresses in the account detail listing, apparently entered soon after the

account was opened in January 2008, are centered on Harvest Street. See id. at 2. Moreover,

Mink says that she received a number of letters from “GC Financial Services” addressed to

plaintiff at her house in 2008. PSOF, Ex. E at 23-24. There is no genuine issue concerning

defendant’s compliance with § 1692g. We conclude that defendant sent plaintiff the required

notice. Therefore, we grant defendant’s motion for summary judgment and deny plaintiff’s

with respect to plaintiff’s § 1692g claim.

Plaintiff’s second claim is that defendant violated § 1692c(a)(3) by calling him at

work after being told to stop because he was getting in trouble for the repeated calls. The

FDCPA prohibits debt collectors without prior consent from communicating with consumers

in connection with a debt “at the consumer’s place of employment if the debt collector knows

or has reason to know that the consumer’s employer prohibits the consumer from receiving

such communication.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(a)(3). Because the FDCPA protects the

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unsophisticated, consumers need not use legally precise phrases and it is “enough to put debt

collectors on notice under § 1692c(a)(3) when a consumer states in plain English that she

cannot speak to the debt collector at work.” Horkey v. J.V.D.B. & Assocs., 333 F.3d 769,

773 (7th Cir. 2003) (applying “unsophisticated consumer” standard, which varies

immaterially, for present purposes, from the Ninth Circuit’s “least sophisticated debtor”

standard). During the majority of defendant’s calls, plaintiff contends that he said, “Please,

you’re getting me in trouble at my job. Please don’t call my job.” PSTOF, Ex. C at 22.

Defendant’s account detail listing contains several entries from April and June 2008

suggesting that plaintiff said he was unable to talk while at work. See DSTOF, Ex. A at 6-7.

Defendant maintains that there is no evidence that plaintiff’s employer prohibited personal

phone calls and that it obliged when plaintiff first asked for the calls to stop on June 27,

2008. A reasonable trier of fact could resolve this dispute in either party’s favor depending

on the weight given to plaintiff’s testimony and defendant’s account detail listing. Therefore,

we deny both motions for summary judgment on plaintiff’s § 1692c(a)(3) claim.

In his third claim, plaintiff alleges that defendant unlawfully threatened him with

actions that could not or were not intended to be taken under § 1692e(5). The FDCPA

broadly proscribes the use of “any false, deceptive, or misleading representation or means”

by debt collectors. 15 U.S.C. § 1692e. “The threat to take any action that cannot legally be

taken or that is not intended to be taken,” appears in a non-exhaustive list as an example of

prohibited conduct. Id. § 1692e(5). Plaintiff contends that he was threatened with wage

garnishment, litigation, and the seizure of his federal tax refunds through a Treasury

Department offset program even though defendant could not take these actions and had

reason to know that the offset action would not be taken. Defendant responds that the

creditor, the Department of Education, could take all three actions and that it merely warned

plaintiff of the potential consequences of non-payment. While there is little to suggest that

defendant implied it could take these actions itself, there is strong evidence that defendant

had reason to know a Treasury offset was not intended to be taken. Defendant’s

representative acknowledges that Treasury offsets generally do not occur for balances as high

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as plaintiff’s and he has never seen the Department of Education take such an action in

similar circumstances. PSTOF, Ex. A at 156-59. Thus, the question is whether there is

evidence that defendant made a threat.

In determining whether a threat has been made, “the conditional nature of a statement,

such as the use of the words ‘may’ or ‘possible,’ does not negate the existence of a threat if

a [communication], in its entirety, could lead the least sophisticated debtor to believe that

legal action is a real possibility.” Schwarm v. Craighead, 552 F. Supp. 2d 1056, 1077 (E.D.

Cal. 2008) (analyzing a letter). Although plaintiff apparently has little recollection of the

contents of these calls, defendant’s account detail listing suggests that the offset warning was

given repeatedly, including in between requests for payment arrangements and immediately

after plaintiff was asked if he planned on doing nothing about the debt. See DSTOF, Ex. A

at 4-7. A reasonable trier of fact could find that defendant’s conduct, taken in context, would

give the least sophisticated debtor the impression that a tax refund seizure was a real

possibility when, in fact, it was not. However, the evidence in the record does not compel

such a conclusion. Therefore, neither party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law on

plaintiff’s § 1692e(5) claim.

Plaintiff, for his fourth claim, alleges that defendant violated § 1692c(b) by contacting

his coworkers, girlfriend, son, and mother. Except for the purpose of acquiring location

information about a consumer, and several other inapplicable situations, debt collectors may

not communicate with third parties in connection with a consumer’s debt. 15 U.S.C. §

1692c(b). Defendant contends that plaintiff does not have any admissible evidence of

contact with plaintiff’s coworkers, girlfriend, and son beyond the acquisition of location

information. We agree. Plaintiff’s account of what these third parties told him about

defendant’s calls would constitute inadmissible hearsay if offered in evidence to prove

improper contact was made. See Fed. R. Evid. 802.

Plaintiff’s mother, on the other hand, was deposed in this case and says that defendant

called her well over a dozen times despite being told not to call. PSTOF, Ex. E at 40. Mink

also says defendant implied that she must not care whether plaintiff was taking care of his

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financial obligations. Id. at 42. Even when communicating for the purpose of acquiring

location information, debt collectors may not state that a “consumer owes any debt.” 15

U.S.C. § 1692b(2). Thus, defendant’s purported contact with Mink would contravene

§ 1692c(b)’s restrictions on third-party communications whether or not the calls were for the

purpose of obtaining location information. In response, defendant offers an affidavit from

its representative asserting that a search of its call records for its three collection centers

handling Department of Education accounts did not reveal any calls made to Mink’s phone

number in the first half of 2008. Grover Affidavit ¶ 14. It is the trier of fact’s role to resolve

this factual dispute. We deny defendant’s motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s

§ 1692c(b) claim with respect to Mink and grant it with respect to all other third parties.

Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment is denied on this claim in all respects.

Plaintiff’s fifth FDCPA claim involves a purported certified letter requesting that

defendant stop calling plaintiff. Debt collectors must cease communication with a consumer

when notified to do so in writing with limited exceptions for certain inapplicable events. 15

U.S.C. § 1692c(c). If notice is made by mail, “notification shall be complete upon receipt.”

Id. Evidence that a letter was properly directed and mailed creates a rebuttable presumption

of delivery. See Busquets-Ivars v. Ashcroft, 333 F.3d 1008, 1010 (9th Cir. 2003). Plaintiff

says that he generated a notice over his lunch break on June 13, 2008 and sent it to defendant

by certified mail, return receipt requested, from a post office. PSTOF, Ex. C at 75-76. In

support, plaintiff proffers a letter dated May 13, 2008 and addressed to the Department of

Education. Id., Ex. D at 1. This unexplained discrepancy undermines plaintiff’s statement

that a notice was properly directed to defendant. In addition, plaintiff admits that he did not

receive a return receipt. Id., Ex. C at 77. There is no delivery presumption for certified mail

when the sender does not receive a requested return receipt. Mulder v. C.I.R., 855 F.2d 208,

212 (5th Cir. 1988); cf. Busquets-Ivars, 333 F.3d at 1009-10 (collecting cases to the same

effect while expressing no opinion on whether to adopt the rule where letter was otherwise

improperly addressed). Defendant also points to the absence of a note about any notice from

plaintiff in defendant’s account detail listing, where one would appear ordinarily. We

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conclude that plaintiff has insufficient evidence from which a reasonable trier of fact could

find that defendant received a cease communication notice from him. We grant defendant’s

motion for summary judgment and deny plaintiff’s on the § 1692c(c) claim.

III.

Finally, defendant alone moves for summary judgment on plaintiff’s claim for

“common law invasion of privacy by intrusion.” Amended Complaint at 4. Such a claim

requires an intrusion that “would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.” Hart v. Seven

Resorts Inc., 190 Ariz. 272, 279, 947 P.2d 848, 853 (Ct. App. 1997). Plaintiff does not

respond to defendant’s motion on this claim and we see no evidence in the record to support

it. Therefore, we grant defendant’s motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s invasion of

privacy by intrusion claim.

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED DENYING plaintiff’s motion of summary

judgment (doc. 68).

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED GRANTING IN PART and DENYING IN PART

defendant’s motion for summary judgment (doc. 70). It is granted on plaintiff’s claims under

§ 1692g, § 1692c(b) except with respect to Pamela Mink, § 1692c(c), and his claim for

invasion of privacy. It is denied as to the remaining claims.

The clerk is instructed to change plaintiff’s first name to “Bryon” from “Bryan.”

DATED this 27th day of October, 2009.

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