IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

SUSAN PATTERSON, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

RAY KLEIN, INC., 

Defendant. 

AIKEN, District Judge. 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF OREGON 

EUGENE DIVISION 

Case No. 6:16-cv-00578-AA 

OPINION AND ORDER 

This case concerns whether an itemized account statement sent to plaintiff, Susan 

Patterson, by defendant, Ray Klein, Inc., violated the provisions of the Fair Debt Collection 

Practices Act, ("FDCPA"), 15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq. Before the Court are plaintiff's motion for 

partial summary judgment (doc. 13) and defendant's motion for summary judgment (doc. 17). 

For the reasons set forth herein, plaintiffs motion is DENIED, and defendant's motion is 

GRANTED. 

Ill 

I! I 

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BACKGROUND 

The facts are not in dispute. This suit arises out of series of actions taken by defendant, a 

corporation in the business of debt collection, in the course of seeking to collect medical debt 

owed by Plaintiff. The parties have been engaged in servicing plaintiffs debt since 2008. 

Defendant has filed three debt collection actions against Plaintiff in Deschutes County Circuit 

Court. Plaintiff paid off the debt subject to the first action. A default judgment was entered on 

the second action in favor of defendant. Over the next few years, Plaintiff made irregular 

payments toward the Judgment debt. In 2014, Defendant issued a writ of garnishment to 

plaintiffs bank. 

After July 2015, Plaintiff failed to make any further payments on her debt. On 

September 30, 2015, Defendant mailed notice to plaintiff that it intended to file a third collection 

on the two debts with remaining balances referred to them. After receiving no response from 

plaintiff, on October 15, 2015, Defendant mailed its claim and notice of claim to the Deschutes 

County Circuit Court. On October 19, 2015, plaintiff attempted to access her account through 

defendant's online website. She discovered that she was unable to view or make payments on 

her account. Plaintiff then sent a message to defendant through its web portal and was informed 

that due to the status of her account, she would need to call a credit representative to discuss the 

issue. Plaintiff indicated that she did not wish to call defendant, because she thought she would 

be harassed. Defendant's representative advised her that she would need to call defendant to 

make a payment or she could do so by mail. 

Plaintiff called defendant and spoke with a representative the after the final message was 

exchanged. Defendant advised plaintiff that she could not view or pay her accounts online due 

to the claim filed in Circuit Court. It is the policy of defendant that accounts involved in active 

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litigation cannot be paid through online portal. 1 Plaintiff then requested that an account 

statement be mailed to her. Defendant mailed the statement on October 22, 2015. On October 

28, 2015, after receiving the statement, Plaintiff again attempted to access here account online. 

After this attempt, plaintiff made no further attempts to access her account online, make 

payments by phone or mail, or communicate in any way with defendant regarding the account. 

Plaintiff filed the present action on April 4, 2016, alleging two violations of the FDCPA. 

On January 1, 2017, plaintiff filed her motion for partial summary judgment, moving that the 

court grant summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff on the issue of liability with respect to Pl. 

Comp. if 10. Defendant moved for summary judgment in its favor on all of plaintiffs claims or, 

alternatively, summary judgment its favor on a bona fide error defense. In the course of motion 

practice, plaintiff agreed that defendant is entitled to summary judgment in its favor regarding 

the allegations in Pl. Comp. if 9. Given this stipulation, the only issue remaining for me to 

resolve is whether defendant violated the FDCP A by sending plaintiff a communication which 

indicated that she could make payments online, when her ability to do so had already been 

deactivated. 

STANDARD 

Summary Judgment is appropriate if"there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact 

and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter oflaw." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). The moving 

party has the burden of establishing the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Id; Celotex 

Corp. v. Cartrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986). If the moving party shows the absence of a genuine 

issue of material fact, the nonmoving party must go beyond the pleadings and identify facts 

1 Defendant represents that this policy is designed to ensure that consumers with accounts 

involved in legal disputes can speak with a representative so that the parties can work towards a 

resolution. 

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which show a genuine issue for trial. Id. at 324. "Summary Judgment is inappropriate if 

reasonable jurors, drawing all inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, could return a verdict 

in the nonmoving parties favor." Diaz v. Eagle Produce Ltd. Partnership, 521F.3d1201, 1207 

(9th Cir. 2008). 

DISCUSSION 

The FDCPA is a broad remedial statute, designed to "eliminate abusive debt collection 

practices by debt collectors" by "comprehensively regulat[ing] the conduct of debt collectors, 

imposing affirmative obligations and broadly prohibiting abusive practices." Gonzalez v. Arrow 

Fin. Servs., LLC, 660 F.3d 1055, 1060-61 (9th Cir. 2011) (quoting 15 U.S.C. § 1692(e)). 

Pertinent to the present action is the FDCPA's prohibition against a debt collector using "any 

false representation or deceptive means to collect or attempt to collect any debt or to obtain 

information concerning the consumer in the course of collecting a debt." 15 U.S.C. 1692(e). 

The FDCPA "comprehensively regulates the conduct of debt collectors," and "is a strict 

liability statute." Gonzales, 660 F.3d at 1060-61. Section 1692e "broadly prohibits the use of 

'any false, deceptive, or misleading representation or means in connection with the collection of 

any debt."' Gonzales, 660 F.3d at 1061(quoting15 U.S.C. § 1692e). 

"In this circuit, a debt collector's liability under§ 1692e of the FDCPA is an issue of 

law." Gonzales, 660 F.3d at 1061. The analysis is objective and "takes into account whether the 

"least sophisticated consumer" would likely be misled by a communication. Id.at 1055. This 

standard is designed to protect consumers who are uniformed and naive, but it also preserves a 

quotient of reasonableness and presumes a basic level of understanding and willingness to read 

with care. Id. at 1062. Courts have carefully preserved this concept of reasonableness in order 

to safeguard defendants from liability for consumers bizarre or idiosyncratic interpretations of 

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communications. Davis v. Hollins Law, 832 F. 3d 962 (9'h Cir. 2016). In assessing FDCPA 

liability, we are not concerned with mere technical falsehoods that mislead no one, but instead 

with genuinely misleading statements that may frustrate a consumer's ability to intelligently 

choose his or her response to the collection of a debt. Donohue v. Quick Collect, Inc., 592 F.3d 

1027, 1034 (9th Cir. 2010) 

Here, plaintiff avers that the defendant violated the FDCP A when it sent her an account 

summary on October 22, 2015, which she requested during the phone interaction with 

defendant's representative. The statement contained a sununary of her account as requested, but, 

among other form language, it also included a notation reading, "[t]o make a payment, please go 

to PCS Direct Pay (https://www.pcsdirectpay.com/) you can log in with the following 

information ... "Dec. of Patterson, Ex. A. However, as explained previously, plaintiff's online 

account was locked due to the collection action filed against her in Deschutes Circuity County 

Court. She was therefore unable to make. payments online. Plaintiff avers that being able to 

make payments online was material as she would have chosen to make a payment online rather 

than making a payment on the phone due to a desire to avoid what she describes as harassment. 

This argument is not persuasive as to the materiality of the statement. After initially 

trying to log in to her account for first since defendant had begun servicing her debt, plaintiff was 

informed that her account was locked to due defendant's policy regarding ongoing litigation. 

However, plaintiff was also informed that she could make payments by phone or by mail. After 

receiving the account statement, she tried to log on to her account one final time and thereafter 

never attempted to contact defendant or to make any further payment on her debt. 

Plaintiff provides no case law to support her conclusion that the ability to pay online, 

when other payment options are available is material under the FDCP A. Plaintiff had clear 

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avenues for payment, both of which she had used in the past to pay this debt, however, she 

preferred an online payment option. Plaintiffs subjective concern of being harassed on the 

telephone while making payments is overstated as she was told she could make payments 

through mail rather than by telephone. The language included in the account statement is the type 

of technical falsehood that courts have found should not create FCDP A liability.2 

Congress enacted the FDCP A in order to eliminate abusive debt collection practices by 

debt collectors [and] to ensure that those debt collectors who refrain from using abusive debt 

collection practices are not competitively disadvantaged. Clark v. Capital Credit & Collection 

Servs., Inc. at 1179-80 (9th Cir. 2006) (internal citations omitted). There is nothing inherently 

abusive about the activity of defendant in this case. Rather, defendant clearly communicated the 

issues with online payments to plaintiff, informing her that she had other payment options, 

namely through mail or by telephone, which she had exclusively used in the past. Defendant 

then sent an account summary to plaintiff which she had requested during the phone 

conversation. This statement contained a technical falsehood. 3 However, plaintiff had been 

informed just a few days previously that online payments were not possible while the collection 

action was pending in Deschutes County Circuit Court. 

Given the extent of the parties' prior communications, the language contained in the 

statement was mere technical falsehood that was not likely to mislead the least sophisticated 

consumer. Defendant communications were sufficient to disclose plaintiffs options to 

intelligently make a decision about the repayment of the debt. Even assuming that a least 

2 See Jeffrey v. Gordon, No. 3:10-cv-1218, 2011WL2134050 (D. Or. May 25, 2011.) 

(holding that a letter sent to plaintiff by defendant which misidentified the holding company was 

not material given subsequent communications between the parties.) 

3 The account statement sent by defendant accurately reported the amount that plaintiff 

owed, to whom she owed the bet, and a history of the payments she made on the debts. The 

statement did not contain any false threats. 

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sophisticated consumer might have thought he or she could make a payment online after being 

told their unable to do so pending litigation, plaintiff knew she had other regular avenues by 

which to make payment. Therefore, this statement would not objectively impair plaintiffs 

ability to intelligently chart a course of action in response to a collection effort, when she knew 

other payment options were readily available. 

Having found that the language in the statement is not material, I conclude that summary 

judgment on behalf of defendant is appropriate. 4 

CONCLUSION 

Plaintiffs Motion for Summary Judgment (doc. 13) is DENIED. Defendant's Motion for 

Summary Judgment (doc. 17) is GRANTED. This action is DISMISSED 

It is so ORDERED. 

Dated this 29th day of September, 2017. 

~,#(lL,J L. AIKEN 

United States District Judge 

4 The court need not address defendant's arguments concerning a bona fide defense. 

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