Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01396/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01396-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Bayview Loan Servicing, LLC
Appellee
Delia Webster
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued September 17, 2015

Decided October 21, 2015

Before

JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge

DANIEL A. MANION, Circuit Judge

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

No. 15-1396

DELIA WEBSTER,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

BAYVIEW LOAN SERVICING, LLC,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Southern District of 

Indiana, Indianapolis Division.

No. 13-cv-01975

Tanya Walton Pratt,

Judge.

O R D E R

Delia Webster sued Bayview Loan Servicing, LLC, asserting claims under the 

Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. She 

later filed a Motion for Leave to File an Amended Complaint, seeking to amend the 

complaint to assert the claims as a class action. Webster simultaneously filed a Motion

for Class Certification. While those motions were pending, Bayview offered to settle 

Webster’s claims, purporting to tender the full relief sought in Webster’s complaint. 

Webster rejected the offer. Bayview then moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that 

Webster’s individual claims were now moot and, accordingly, she could no longer serve 

as a class representative. The district court agreed and dismissed Webster’s individual 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1

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No. 15-1396 Page 2

claims as moot. The district court then denied her motions to amend the complaint and 

for class certification, finding those motions also moot. Webster appeals. 

After the district court dismissed Webster’s individual claims as moot, this court 

issued its decision in Chapman v. First Index, Inc., 796 F.3d 783 (7th Cir. 2015), wherein 

we held that a defendant’s offer of full compensation does not moot the plaintiff’s 

lawsuit. Id. at 787. Accordingly, based on Chapman, we reverse the dismissal of 

Webster’s individual claims, vacate the denial of Webster’s Motion for Leave to File an 

Amended Complaint and Motion for Class Certification, and remand for further 

proceedings consistent with this order.

I.

Delia Webster defaulted on a mortgage due to BAC Home Loan Servicing, which 

defendant Bayview Loan Servicing, LLC (“Bayview”) began servicing in 2012. Webster 

later received a discharge in bankruptcy on that debt. Nonetheless, Bayview continued 

to call her cell phone, using an automatic telephone dialing service. After the 

bankruptcy discharge, Bayview also sent a letter to Webster regarding the debt. On 

December 13, 2013, Webster filed a complaint against Bayview, alleging claims under 

the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) and the Fair Debt Collection 

Practices Act (“FDCPA”). Webster’s complaint sought only individual relief (as 

opposed to class relief), and requested actual and compensatory damages, an order 

enjoining Bayview from committing any future violations of the FDCPA and TCPA, 

and a declaratory judgment that Bayview violated the FDCPA and TCPA. 

On May 13, 2014, Webster filed a Motion for Leave to File an Amended 

Complaint. She attached the proposed amended complaint to the motion: The proposed 

amended complaint included not just Webster’s individual TCPA and FDCPA claims, 

but also added class claims under the TCPA. That same day, Webster also filed a 

Motion for Class Certification, requesting that the court certify the class she proposed in 

her amended complaint. 

In response, Bayview first requested an extension of time to respond to the 

Motion for Leave to File an Amended Complaint, but before responding to that motion, 

Bayview tendered relief to Webster for her individual claims. Webster rejected 

Bayview’s tender. Bayview then moved to dismiss Webster’s individual complaint for 

lack of jurisdiction, and also moved to strike Webster’s Motion for Class Certification 

because the currently pending complaint only asserted individual claims. The district 

Case: 15-1396 Document: 35 Filed: 10/21/2015 Pages: 4
No. 15-1396 Page 3

court granted Bayview’s Motion to Dismiss Webster’s individual complaint. It then 

denied Webster’s Motion for Leave to File an Amended Complaint and her Motion for 

Class Certification as moot. Webster appeals.

II.

On appeal, Webster initially argued that dismissal of her complaint was

inappropriate because she had filed a Motion for Leave to File an Amended Complaint 

to allege a class action suit and had also sought class certification prior to Bayview’s 

tender to settle her individual claims. Webster had further argued that Bayview’s tender 

did not moot her individual claims because the offer did not provide her with the full 

relief she had requested. However, as Webster rightly maintained at oral argument, this 

court’s recent decision in Chapman mandates reversal for a different reason: A 

defendant’s tender of full relief does not moot the litigation. Id. at 787. In reaching this 

holding, Chapman expressly overruled Damasco v. Clearwire Corp., 662 F.3d 891, 895 (7th 

Cir. 2011), Thorogood v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 595 F.3d 750, 752 (7th Cir. 2010), Rand v. 

Monsanto Co., 926 F.2d 596, 598 (7th Cir. 1991), and other “similar decisions to the extent 

they hold that a defendant’s offer of full compensation moots the litigation or otherwise 

ends the Article III case or controversy.” Id. at 787. Thus, based on Chapman, we reverse 

the district court’s dismissal of Webster’s individual complaint.1 

However, we note, as did the court in Chapman, that “[r]ejecting a fully 

compensatory offer may have consequences other than mootness.” Id. at 787. While 

Bayview advocates for this court to impose those consequences now, such as by finding 

that Webster has waived her claims or is estopped from presenting them, those 

questions are best left to the district court in the first instance. Id. at 788.

Because we reverse the district court’s dismissal of Webster’s individual claims, 

we must also vacate the district court’s dismissal of Webster’s Motion for Leave to File 

an Amended Complaint and her Motion for Class Certification. In doing so, however, 

we take no position on the propriety of granting those motions. It is still within the 

district court’s discretion to decide whether to grant a motion for leave to amend, 

United States v. Sanford-Brown, Ltd., 788 F.3d 696, 706-07 (7th Cir. 2015), and then further

to determine whether to certify a class and whether Webster would be an appropriate 

 

1 As Chapman recognizes, the mootness issue is currently pending before the Supreme Court. See Gomez v. 

Campbell-Ewald Co., 768 F.3d 871 (9th Cir. 2014), cert. granted, —U.S. —, 135 S.Ct. 2311, 191 L.Ed.2d 977 

(2015).

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class representative. Arreola v. Godinez, 546 F.3d 788, 799 (7th Cir. 2008). Those questions 

are also left to the district court to consider.

III.

The district court’s order granting Bayview’s Motion to Dismiss is reversed 

because Bayview’s tender of relief did not moot Webster’s individual claims. The 

district court’s order dismissing Webster’s Motion for Leave to File an Amended

Complaint and Motion for Class Certification is vacated, and this case is remanded for 

further proceedings consistent with this order.

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