Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_05-cv-04006/USCOURTS-cand-4_05-cv-04006-3/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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STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: PRELIMINARY 

APPROVAL OF CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT AND CLASS 

NOTICE – C 05-04006 CW (MEJ)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

OAKLAND DIVISION 

CARRIE ROBINSON, on Behalf of Herself 

and All Others Similarly Situated, 

Plaintiff, 

vs. 

NCO FINANCIAL SYSTEMS, INC. and 

DOES 1 though 25, inclusive, 

Defendants. 

/ 

Case No. C 05-04006 CW (MEJ) 

ORDER GRANTING STIPULATION RE: 

PRELIMINARY APPROVAL OF CLASS 

ACTION SETTLEMENT AND CLASS 

NOTICE 

Case 4:05-cv-04006-CW Document 73 Filed 11/03/06 Page 1 of 6
STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: PRELIMINARY 

APPROVAL OF CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT AND CLASS 

NOTICE – C 05-04006 CW (MEJ)

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I. INTRODUCTION 

Plaintiff Carrie Robinson, by and through her counsel of record, and Defendant NCO 

Financial Systems, Inc. (“NCO”), by and through its counsel, hereby submit this Stipulation and 

[Proposed] Order Re: Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement and Class Notice. An order 

amending certain provisions of the Settlement Agreement is necessary, as the parties learned last 

week that notice to members of the class was not accomplished as previously believed. As outlined 

herein and with the Court’s approval, the parties have agreed and stipulated to amending certain 

provisions of the Settlement Agreement to ensure prompt and adequate notice will be made to the 

class members. These changes are necessary so the proposed settlement can move forward to final 

approval and without any ultimate prejudice to the class members. 

Given that the Notices and the Claim Forms were not mailed on September 11, 2006 as 

believed, the October 27, 2006 deadline for class members to exclude themselves from the class 

and/or object to the settlement must be reset from October 27, 2006 and the December 8, 2006 

fairness hearing must be continued. The parties also propose modifying the Settlement Agreement 

to change the third-party vendor responsible for printing and mailing the Notices and Claim Forms. 

II. PREAMBLE 

WHEREAS, on July 13, 2006, the parties submitted the Joint Motion for Preliminary 

Approval of Class Action Settlement. [Docket 48] 

WHEREAS, ¶8 of the Class Action Settlement Agreement, provides that the parties agreed 

NCO would be responsible for the printing and mailing of the Notice of Class Action and Proposed 

Settlement (“Notice”) and the Claim Form. See Class Action Settlement Agreement, ¶ 8, attached 

to the Joint Motion for Preliminary Approval at Exhibit 1. 

WHEREAS, ¶2 of the Settlement Agreements states there are 12,424 class members. Id. 

This information was provided by NCO which it believed to be accurate at the time. 

WHEREAS, on August 9, 2006, the Court entered the Order re: Preliminary Approval of 

Class Action Settlement (“August 9 Order”) which, among other things, provided for approval of the 

Case 4:05-cv-04006-CW Document 73 Filed 11/03/06 Page 2 of 6
STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: PRELIMINARY 

APPROVAL OF CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT AND CLASS 

NOTICE – C 05-04006 CW (MEJ)

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proposed form of Notice of Class Action and Proposed Settlement and the Claim Form. [Docket # 

56] 

WHEREAS, the August 9 Order also set: (1) the date for mailing the notice and claim form 

at 10 days from the date of the Order; (2) the date for the class members to exclude themselves from 

or object to the settlement as October 10, 2006; and (3) the fairness hearing on December 8, 2006. 

WHEREAS, on August 11, 2006, NCO requested an amendment to the August 9 Order to 

correct a typographical error in the preliminary approval order to provide the agreed 21-day time 

period for PSC to mail class members the notice and claim form. [Docket #s 57-59] 

WHEREAS, on August 28, 2006, the Court issued an order approving NCO’s requested 

amendment. [Docket # 76] That order also continued from October 10 to October 27, 2006 as the 

deadline for exclusions and objections to the settlement. 

WHEREAS, on September 22, 2006, NCO obtained confirmation from its printing and 

mailing vendor, PSC, that the Notices and Claim Forms had been mailed to the class members on 

September 11, 2006. As of October 13, 2006, however, the Claims Administrator for this case had 

received only a total of five Claim Forms and no class members had contacted Class Counsel. 

WHEREAS, NCO investigated the class mailing and determined on October 19, 2006, that 

an error was made by its vendor, PSC, responsible for printing and mailing to class members the 

Notices and Claim Forms. The failure of the process in this instance resulted from a mistake – the 

PSC representative chose and confirmed a proper mailing of the wrong data set. As a result of this 

error, the Notices and Claim Forms were not mailed to any of the class members. Instead, PSC 

mailed the Notices and Claim Forms to only 91 individuals unrelated to the present case. 

WHEREAS, during this process, NCO also learned that the number of class members, 

previously believed to be 12,424, was actually 12,113. The discrepancy arose because 310 of the 

accounts had a Chase P.O. Box in place of the consumers' addresses. Consequently, the collection 

notices at issue were never sent to these consumers and, by definition, they are not members of the 

class. Additionally, the spreadsheet in which the database of accounts was maintained numbered one 

Case 4:05-cv-04006-CW Document 73 Filed 11/03/06 Page 3 of 6
STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: PRELIMINARY 

APPROVAL OF CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT AND CLASS 

NOTICE – C 05-04006 CW (MEJ)

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row which did not contain account information, thus the further reduction by one for a total of 

12,113. 

WHEREAS, immediately upon learning of the mailing error, Plaintiff’s Counsel, Elizabeth 

Arleo, and NCO’s counsel, Debbie Kirkpatrick, jointly called the Court clerk to inform the Court of 

the mailing error and that the parties intended to file this Stipulation and [Proposed] Order. Ms. 

Kirkpatrick subsequently filed a Declaration Regarding Error in Class Notice and Intention to 

Submit Joint Status Report and Recommendations. [Docket #71] 

IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED by and between the undersigned, counsel for 

the parties in the above-entitled action, to: 

(1) Amend ¶8 of the Settlement Agreement by replacing the entire existing provision with 

the following language “At NCO’s cost, the independent third-party claims 

administrator, First Class, Inc., will oversee the mailing of the Notices and Claim Forms, 

attempt to locate complete and correct addresses of class members, provide an acceptable 

affidavit of the mailing and obtain an affidavit from the U.S. Postal Service to 

demonstrate that the correct number of letters were mailed. First Class, Inc. will also 

conduct the mailing of the checks in compliance with the Claims Administrator, pursuant 

to ¶11 of the Settlement Agreement.”; 

(2) Amend ¶2 of the Settlement Agreement by changing “12,424 class members” to “12,113 

class members”; 

(3) Amend ¶6.D. and ¶12.B.i. of the Settlement Agreement to add “revised” before “¶8”; 

(4) Wherever the “opt out/exclusion date” is referenced in the Settlement Agreement, it shall 

be interpreted to mean any amended opt out/exclusion pursuant to the [Proposed] Order 

contained herein; 

(5) Wherever the language “Court’s entry of the Order of Preliminary Approval of Class 

Settlement” is referenced in the Settlement Agreement, it shall now be interpreted to 

include any subsequent order regarding preliminary approval of the class action 

settlement; 

Case 4:05-cv-04006-CW Document 73 Filed 11/03/06 Page 4 of 6
STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: PRELIMINARY 

APPROVAL OF CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT AND CLASS 

NOTICE – C 05-04006 CW (MEJ)

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(6) NCO will pay the maximum class disbursement of $50 to each of the five individuals 

unrelated to this action who returned Claim Forms which they erroneously received; 

(7) Request that the Court continue the time for class members to object to or exclude 

themselves from the settlement; and 

(8) Request that the Court continue the fairness hearing from December 8, 2006. 

DATED: November 2, 2006 Respectfully submitted, 

ARLEO LAW FIRM, PLC 

ELIZABETH J. ARLEO (SBN 201730) 

ELIZABETH J. ARLEO 

850 Main Street, Suite 201 

Ramona, CA 92065 

Telephone: 760/ 789- 8000 

760/ 789- 8081 (fax) 

LAWRENCE L. SZABO 

ATTORNEY AT LAW 

3608 Grand Avenue 

Oakland, CA 94610 

Telephone: 510/ 834-4893 

510/ 834-9220 (fax) 

WICKMAN & WICKMAN 

STEVEN A. WICKMAN 

CHRISTINA E. WICKMAN 

5151 Murphy Canyon Road, Suite 100 

San Diego, CA 92123-4339 

Telephone: 858/ 292-9999 

858/ 277-3456 (fax) 

Attorneys for Plaintiff 

DATED: November 1, 2006 SESSIONS, FISHMAN & NATHAN 

 IN CALIFORNIA, LLP 

DEBBIE P. KIRKPATRICK (SBN 207112) 

DEBBIE P. KIRKPATRICK 

3667 Voltaire Street 

San Diego, California 92106 

Telephone: 619/ 758-1891 

619/ 222-3667 (fax) 

Case 4:05-cv-04006-CW Document 73 Filed 11/03/06 Page 5 of 6
STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: PRELIMINARY 

APPROVAL OF CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT AND CLASS 

NOTICE – C 05-04006 CW (MEJ)

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ERICKSEN, ARBUTHNOT, KILDUFF, 

 DAY & LINDSTROM, INC. 

BENJAMIN A. EMMERT 

152 North Third Street, Suite 700 

San Jose, California 95112-5660 

Telephone: 408/ 286-0880 

408/ 286-0337 (fax) 

SESSIONS, FISHMAN & NATHAN, L.L.P. 

DAVID ISRAEL (LSB No. 7174) 

BRYAN C. SHARTLE (LSB No. 27640) 

3850 North Causeway Blvd. 

Lakeway Two, Suite 1240 

Metairie, Louisiana 70002-1752 

Telephone: (504) 828-3700 

504/ 828-3737 (fax) 

Attorneys for Defendant, 

NCO Financial Systems, Inc. 

* * * 

ORDER 

PURSUANT TO STIPULATION, IT IS SO ORDERED, 

Within 14 days of the date of this Order, First Class, Inc. shall cause a copy of the Notice and 

Claim form to be mailed to all members of the Settlement Class; 

The deadline for class members to exclude themselves from the class and/or object to the 

settlement is continued from October 27, 2006 to January 3, 2007, approximately 60 days from the 

date of this Order; and 

The Fairness Hearing shall be continued from December 8, 2006 to February 9, 2007 at 

10:00 a.m.

Date: 11/3/06 

 CLAUDIA WILKEN 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 

Case 4:05-cv-04006-CW Document 73 Filed 11/03/06 Page 6 of 6