Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03849/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03849-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Diversified Collection Service
Appellee
John Doe
Appellee
Elizabeth Strand
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 03-3849

___________

Elizabeth Strand, *

*

Appellant, *

*

v. *

* Appeal from the United States

Diversified Collection Service, * District Court for the 

Inc., a California corporation; * District of Minnesota.

John Doe, a/k/a Dan Miller, *

*

Appellees. *

* 

*

___________

Submitted: June 16, 2004 

Filed: August 12, 2004 

___________

Before LOKEN, Chief Judge, JOHN R. GIBSON, and BYE, Circuit Judges.

___________

BYE, Circuit Judge.

Elizabeth Strand brought an action against Diversified Collection Service, Inc.

(DCS), for alleged violations of the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA), 15

Appellate Case: 03-3849 Page: 1 Date Filed: 08/12/2004 Entry ID: 1798671 
1

The Honorable Paul A. Magnuson, United States District Judge for the District

of Minnesota.

-2-

U.S.C. §§ 1692-1692o. The district court1

 dismissed Ms. Strand’s suit for failure to

state a claim upon which relief can be granted. We affirm. 

I 

Within a twenty-day period in 2003, Ms. Strand received from DCS four letters

(dated May 28, May 30, June 5, and June 17) attempting to collect a debt. Printed on

the envelope of each letter were the terms “D.C.S., Inc.” above the return address,

“PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL” in capital boldface type, and

“ ” in capital reverse typeface. Each envelope IMMEDIATE REPLY REQUESTED

also displayed a printed corporate logo depicting a grid with an upward-pointing

arrow and the initials “DCS.”

Following the receipt of the letters, Ms. Strand brought this suit, alleging DCS

violated § 1692f(8) of the FDCPA. Section 1692f(8) prohibits debt collectors from

using “unfair or unconscionable” conduct when attempting to collect a debt through

the use of “any language or symbols, other than the debt collector’s address, on any

envelope when communicating with a consumer by use of mails . . . except that a debt

collector may use his business name if such name does not indicate that he is in the

debt collection business.”

Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), DCS brought a motion

to dismiss Ms. Strand’s claim. The district court granted the motion, declining to

adopt a strict reading of § 1692f(8). The court reasoned the letters and symbols on

the envelopes were benign insofar as they did not reveal they pertained to a debt

collection. For the following reasons, we agree and therefore affirm. 

Appellate Case: 03-3849 Page: 2 Date Filed: 08/12/2004 Entry ID: 1798671 
-3-

II

We review de novo a district court’s decision to grant a motion to dismiss.

Stone Motor Co. v. Gen. Motors Corp., 293 F.3d 456, 465 (8th Cir. 2002). Under

Rule 12(b)(6), we must accept Ms. Strand’s factual allegations as true and grant every

reasonable inference in her favor. Id. at 464; Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). A motion to

dismiss should be granted “as a practical matter . . . only in the unusual case in which

a plaintiff includes allegations that show, on the face of the complaint, that there is

some insuperable bar to relief.” Frey v. Herculaneum, 44 F.3d 667, 671 (8th Cir.

1995) (quoting Bramlet v. Wilson, 495 F.2d 714, 716 (8th Cir. 1974)). At the very

least, however, the complaint must contain facts which state a claim as a matter of law

and must not be conclusory. Id.

A violation of the FDCPA is reviewed utilizing the unsophisticated-consumer

standard which is “designed to protect consumers of below average sophistication or

intelligence without having the standard tied to ‘the very last rung on the

sophistication ladder.’” Duffy v. Landberg, 215 F.3d 871, 874 (8th Cir. 2000)

(quoting Taylor v. Perrin, Landry, deLaunay & Durand, 103 F.3d 1232, 1236 (5th Cir.

1997)). This standard protects the uninformed or naive consumer, yet also contains

an objective element of reasonableness to protect debt collectors from liability for

peculiar interpretations of collection letters. Peters v. Gen. Serv. Bureau, Inc., 277

F.3d 1051, 1054-1055 (8th Cir. 2002).

 Section 1692f, in pertinent part, states:

A debt collector may not use unfair or unconscionable means to collect

or attempt to collect any debt. Without limiting the general application

of the foregoing, the following conduct is a violation of this section:

. . .

(8) Using any language or symbol, other than the debt collector’s

address, on any envelope when communicating with a consumer

Appellate Case: 03-3849 Page: 3 Date Filed: 08/12/2004 Entry ID: 1798671 
-4-

by use of the mails or by telegram, except that a debt collector

may use his business name if such name does not indicate that he

is in the debt collection business.

(emphasis added). Ms. Strand contends the language of § 1692f(8) is unambiguous:

a debt collector violates § 1692f if it sends a debtor a communication with any

language or symbol (other than possibly the collector’s business name) printed on the

face of the envelope containing the communication. 

We first observe Ms. Strand invites us to read § 1692f(8) to create bizarre

results likely beyond the scope of Congress’s intent in enacting the statute. Under her

literal reading of § 1692f(8), a debtor’s address and an envelope’s pre-printed postage

would arguably be prohibited, as would any innocuous mark related to the post, such

as “overnight mail” and “forwarding and address correction requested.” Cf.

Thompson v. Siratt, 95 F.2d 214, 216 (8th Cir. 1938) (suggesting even unambiguous

statutes should not be construed according to their terms if the construction leads to

“absurd or impracticable consequences”). 

With this observation in mind, we start our analysis by considering whether

DCS violated § 1692f(8) by printing its initials on the suspect envelopes. Contrary

to Ms. Strand’s view, it is not plainly clear the statute prohibits the use of such initials

as a corporate name. While the statute forbids use of “any language or symbol,” it

makes an exception for the debt collector’s business name, so long as the name does

not reveal the collector’s business. At issue then is whether the word “name,” as used

in the statute, encompasses references to a corporation by its initials. 

We believe the word, as used modernly in commerce, can mean not only an

appellation in the traditional sense of the word but also a more-abstract signifier, such

as initials. In today's culture, when memorable brevity is paramount and words and

statements are so commonly reduced to letters and numerals (e.g., Y2K), initials often

have a wider currency than the names they represent. Take, for instance, the

Appellate Case: 03-3849 Page: 4 Date Filed: 08/12/2004 Entry ID: 1798671 
2

Other district courts have adopted similar views. See Lindbergh v. Transworld

Sys., Inc., 846 F. Supp. 175, 180 (D. Conn. 1994) (holding the use of the word

“Transmittal” and a symbol consisting of a blue stripe did not violate § 1692f(8));

Johnson v. NCB Collection Servs., 799 F. Supp. 1298, 1304-1305 (D. Conn. 1992)

(holding the use of phrase “Revenue Department” did not violate § 1692f(8)).

-5-

corporate entities widely known as IBM, AOL, ESPN, and AT&T rather than by their

spelled-out names. We conclude there is sufficient doubt about the scope of the word

“name” in § 1692f(8) to permit us to examine the Congressional purpose underlying

the FDCPA. See Dowd v. United Steelworkers of Am., Local No. 286, 253 F.3d

1093, 1099 (8th Cir. 2001) (stating “when the meaning of a statute is questionable,

the statute should be given a sensible construction and construed to effectuate the

underlying purposes of the law”).

The purpose of the FDCPA is “to eliminate abusive debt collection practices

by debt collectors, [and] to insure that those debt collectors who refrain from using

abusive debt collection practices are not competitively disadvantaged.” 15 U.S.C. §

1692(e). In Masuda v. Thomas Richards & Co., the plaintiff brought a claim similar

to Ms. Strand’s, alleging the defendant violated § 1692f(8) by using the phrases

“Personal & Confidential” and “Forwarding and Address Correction Requested.” 759

F. Supp. 1456, 1466 (C.D. Cal. 1991). The court observed “Congress’s intent in

protecting consumers . . . would not be promoted by proscribing benign language”

because Congress enacted §1692f(8) simply to prevent debt collectors from “using

symbols on envelopes indicating that the contents pertain to debt collection.” Id.

(citing S. Rep. No. 95-382 at 8 (1977), reprinted in 1977 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 1702)

(emphasis in the original).2

In light of such clear and universal pronouncements on the purpose of the

FDCPA, we believe a reading of the word “name” encompassing initials and logos

does not thwart Congressional purpose in any way. On the contrary, such abstracted

business names reveal less about the nature of a business, and thus there is a

Appellate Case: 03-3849 Page: 5 Date Filed: 08/12/2004 Entry ID: 1798671 
3

The Federal Trade Commission, the administrative agency charged by

Congress to interpret and enforce the statute, has adopted a similar view. As the

agency has explained: 

A debt collector does not violate this section by using an envelope

printed with words or notations that do not suggest the purpose of the

communication. For example, a collector may communicate via . . . a

letter with the word “Personal” or “Confidential” on the envelope.

FTC, Statement of General Policy or Staff Commentary on the Fair Debt Collections

Practices Act, 53 Fed. Reg. 50,097, 50108 (Dec. 13, 1988).

-6-

decreased risk they will invade the debtor’s privacy and peace of mind by disclosing

the debtor is the subject of a collection. In this case too, therefore, the strict

adherence to the literal word less advances the purposes of the statute than a liberal

reading consistent with modern custom and usage. To summarize, we believe the

statute is subject to more than one reading, and we conclude the broader reading

effectuates the underlying purposes of the statute and therefore represents a more

sensible construction. By a natural extension, this construction also renders benign

the neutral logo and innocuous phrases printed on the DCS envelopes.3

Ms. Strand contends that, even if benign words and symbols do not violate the

FDCPA, there is a triable issue as to whether the letters and symbols in this case were

benign. As a matter of law, however, we conclude the language and symbols were

benign because they did not, individually or collectively, reveal the source or purpose

of the enclosed letters. Even from the perspective of an unsophisticated consumer,

the envelopes must have appeared indistinguishable from the countless items of socalled junk mail found daily in mailboxes across the land. 

Appellate Case: 03-3849 Page: 6 Date Filed: 08/12/2004 Entry ID: 1798671 
-7-

III

Because an interpretation of § 1692f(8) exempting benign words and symbols

better effectuates Congressional purpose, and because a strict reading would lead to

bizarre and impracticable consequences, we conclude the statute does not proscribe

benign language and symbols such as those printed on the envelopes Ms. Strand

received from DCS. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s decision to dismiss

her claim. 

______________________________

Appellate Case: 03-3849 Page: 7 Date Filed: 08/12/2004 Entry ID: 1798671