IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS 

EASTERN DIVISION 

NACOLA MAGEE, and JAMES PETERSON, ) 

on behalf of plaintiffs and the classes defined ) 

below, ) 

 ) 

 Plaintiffs, ) 12-cv-1624 

 ) 

 vs. ) Judge John W. Darrah 

 ) 

PORTFOLIO RECOVERY ASSOCIATES. LLC ) Magistrate Judge Martin 

 ) 

 Defendant. ) 

PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION TO MODIFY THE CLASS DEFINITION

 Plaintiffs request that this Court modify the class definitions of the classes it has certified1 

in this matter to those who actually paid in response to the collection letters, those who have not 

received a subsequent letter from the defendant Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC (“PRA”) 

 1 On February 5, 2015, this Court certified two classes in this Fair Debt Collection 

Practices Act (“FDCPA”) case, which asserts that PRA violated the Act by sending letters 

demanding payment of time-barred debt without disclosing that the debt was time-barred and 

threatening credit reporting after a time that a debt can no longer be reported: 

Class 1 (Count I- Misleading Settlement Offers on Time Barred Debts): (a) All 

individuals in Illinois and Indiana (b) to whom PRA (c) sent a letter that referred to a 

“settlement” seeking to collect a debt (d) which debt was (i) a credit card debt on which the last 

payment had been made more than five years prior to the letter in Illinois or (ii) a credit card 

debt on which the last payment had been made more than six years prior to the letter in Indiana 

and Wisconsin (e) which letter was sent on or after March 6, 2011 (one year prior to the filing of 

this action) and on or before March 26, 2012 (20 days after the filing of this action). 

Class 2 (Count II- Threat of Credit Reporting): (a) All individuals with addresses in 

Illinois and Indiana (b) with respect to whom defendant Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC sent 

or caused to be sent a letter (directly or by an agent or attorney) (c) to collect a credit card debt 

(d) more than seven years after chargeoff based on defendant’s records (e) which letter referred 

to “trade line,” “credit report” or “credit reporting agencies” and (f) was sent at any time during a 

period beginning March 6, 2011 and ending August 26, 2012. 

Case: 1:12-cv-01624 Document #: 210 Filed: 04/09/15 Page 1 of 5 PageID #:3411
informing them that the debt is time-barred or no longer can be reported on their credit report or 

those who have filed a lawsuit. 

Specifically, Plaintiffs propose that the classes be limited to the following 

definitions: 

 Count I (Time-Barred Debts Class): (a) All individuals in Illinois and Indiana (b) to 

whom PRA (c) sent a letter that referred to a “settlement” seeking to collect a debt (d) which 

debt was (i) a credit card on which the last payment had been made more than five years prior to 

the letter in Illinois or (ii) a credit card debt on which the last payment had been made more than 

six years prior to the letter in Indiana (e) which letter was sent on or after March 6, 2011 (one 

year prio to the filing of this action) and on or before March 26, 2012 (20 days after the filing of 

this action), but (f) excluding all individuals who (i) neither made a payment after receipt of that 

letter nor sued and (ii) later received a correspondence from PRA informing them that the debt 

was beyond the statute of limitations. 

Count II (Credit Reporting Class): (a) All individuals in Illinois and Indiana (b) with 

respect to whom PRA sent or caused to be sent a letter (directly or by an agent or attorney) (c) to 

collect a credit card debt (d) more than seven years after charge-off based on defendant’s records 

(e) which letter referred to “trade line,” “credit report” or “credit reporting agencies” (f) was sent 

at any time during a period beginning March 6, 2011 and ending August 26, 2012, but (f) 

excluding all individuals who (i) neither made a payment after receipt of that letter nor sued and 

(ii) later received a correspondence from PRA informing them that the debt would no longer be 

reported to the credit reporting agencies or bureaus. 

 In support of their motion, plaintiffs state:

1. By separate motion, plaintiffs have sought to require notice to be sent to the class 

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and requiring PRA to bear the cost of class notice based on the rulings against PRA on liability 

in Pantoja v. Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC, No. 13 C 7667, 2015 WL 848568, (N.D. Ill. 

Jan. 14, 2015) and Slick v. Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC, 2014 WL 4100416 (N.D. Ill.). 

(Dkt No. 201) The present motion does not alter the relief sought by Plaintiffs in that motion. 

Defendant should still be required to pay the cost of notice to the class because there has been a 

strong, if not conclusive, showing of likelihood of success on the merits. 

2. The two classes that this Court has certified contains upwards of 400,000 people. 

Of those, 7,717 have paid $7,872,491 million in response to PRA’s letters demanding payment 

after both the statute of limitations and credit reporting periods had expired. The other 393,000 

will recover only a share of the maximum statutory damages ($500,000 for each class). The 

damage cap of the Act limits PRA’s exposure on a class basis to 1% of its net worth, thus 

limiting the statutory damages pot that the class can share. 

3. In opposition to Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification, PRA argued that the class 

could not be certified because the relief to class members would be de minimis. In their reply, 

Plaintiffs’ argued that notice to the class alone is a substantial relief. 2 The benefit is that the 

class member is notified that the debt is past the statute of limitations or credit reporting period, 

or both. 

4. Counsel has become aware that PRA has revised its collection letters to include 

 

2 In Mace v. Van Ru Credit Corp., 109 F.3d 338 (7th Cir. 1997), the Seventh Circuit 

held that the potential for “de minimis recovery (in monetary terms) should not automatically bar 

a class action.” Mace, 109 F.3d at 344. The Court explained: 

The policy at the very core of the class action mechanism is to 

overcome the problem that small recoveries do not provide the 

incentive for any individual to bring a solo action prosecuting his or 

her rights. A class action solves this problem by aggregating the 

relatively paltry potential recoveries into something worth 

someone’s (usually an attorney’s) labor. 

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language that the debt is beyond the statute of limitations and/or credit reporting period. As 

such, many of the class members will have already received a collection letter from PRA with 

this information. Thus, the notice motivation for class certification is no longer important. 

5. The FDCPA allows for individual recoveries of up to $1,000. If the class is not 

narrowed, class members who have already been informed that their debts are time barred or 

beyond the credit reporting period, will release the right to that recovery for payment of a very 

small amount of money. The value of the notice is no longer an added benefit for those class 

members who have received subsequent collection notices from PRA informing them of the 

same. 

6. Narrowing the class to those who have actually paid or those who have not yet been 

informed that their debts are time-barred or not subject to credit reporting and (and those who 

have filed suit) will increase the amounts paid to each class members for releasing their claims. 

7. This Court has broad discretion to modify a class definition at any time. See, e.g.

Schorsch v. Hewlett–Packard Co., 417 F.3d 748, 750 (7th Cir.2005) (noting that “[l]itigants and 

judges regularly modify class definitions”); In re Monumental Life Ins. Co., 365 F.3d 408, 414 

(5th Cir.2004) (“District courts are permitted to limit or modify class definitions to provide the 

necessary precision.”); Powers v. Hamilton Cnty. Pub. Defender Comm'n, 501 F.3d 592, 619 

(6th Cir. 2007)( “District courts have broad discretion to modify class definitions, so the district 

court's multiple amendments merely showed that the court took seriously its obligation to make 

appropriate adjustments to the class definition as the litigation progressed”). 

 WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs respectfully request that this Court enter an order narrowing the 

classes to those who paid money or filed suit in response to PRA’s faulty notice or those who 

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have not yet received a letter advising them that their debt is time barred or beyond the credit 

reporting period as set forth in the above definitions. 

 Respectfully submitted, 

 

 s/ Cassandra P. Miller 

 Cassandra P. Miller 

 

Daniel A. Edelman 

Cathleen M. Combs 

James O. Latturner 

Cassandra P. Miller 

EDELMAN, COMBS , LATTURNER 

 & GOODWIN, LLC 

20 S. Clark St., Suite 1500 

Chicago, IL 60603 

(312) 739-4200 

(312) 419-0379 (FAX) 

 

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

 I, Cassandra P. Miller, under penalty of perjury, certify that on April 9, 2015 a 

copy of the attached document was filed by the Court’s ECF system and was served upon the 

parties listed below: 

David M. Schultz 

dschultz@hinshawlaw.com 

Avanti D. Bakane 

abakane@hinshawlaw.com 

Jennifer Weller 

jweller@hinshawlaw.com 

Katherine H. Tresley 

ktresley@hinshawlaw.com 

 

 

 s/Cassandra P. Miller 

 Cassandra P. Miller 

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