[PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________ No. 15

- 11450

________________________ D.C. Docket No. 0:14

- cv - 61573

- RLR

STEVE EVANTO , Plaintiff

- Appellant ,
versus FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION , Defendant

- Appellee.

________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Fl orida

_______________________ ( March 1, 2016 ) Before WILLIAM PRYOR and DUBINA , Circuit Judges , and ROBRENO , * District Judge

. WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judge :

* Honorable Eduardo C. Robreno , United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania , sitting by designat ion.

Case: 15-11450 Date Filed: 03/01/2016 Page: 1 of 72 This appeal requires us to decide whether an assignee can be held liable under the Truth in Lending Act for a servicer’s failure to provide the borrower with a payoff balance. Steve Evanto sued the assignee of his mortgage after his servicer failed to prov ide a payoff balance. The Act creates a cause of action against an assignee for a violation that is “ apparent on the face of the disclosure statement provided in connection with [ a mortgage ] transaction pursuant to this subchapter.” 15 U.S.C

. § 1641(e)(1)( A). Because the failure to provide a payoff balance is not a violation a pparent on the face of the disclosure statement, w e affirm the dismissal of Evanto’s amended complaint

. I. BACKGROUND Steve Evanto obtained a home mortgage in 2003 from Amnet Mortgage, Inc.
T he loan was voluntarily assigned to the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae , and Green Tree Servicing LLC serviced the mortgage at all relevant times. A fter f oreclosure proceedings began , Evanto requested a payoff balance from Green Tree. The Act obligated Green Tree to provide the balance within seven business days , id. § 1639g, but Evanto alleges that Green Tree never provided it

. Evanto sued Fannie Mae for Green Tree’s failure to timely provide the balance

. Fannie Mae mo ved to dismiss Evanto’s amended complaint, and the district court granted the motion

.

Case: 15-11450 Date Filed: 03/01/2016 Page: 2 of 73 II. STANDARD OF REVIEW We review de novo the dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim, and we accept all plausible factua l allegations in the complaint

. Wor ld Holdings, LLC v. Fed eral Republic of Germany , 701 F.3d 641, 649 (11th Cir. 2012).
III. DISCUSSION

“ A creditor or servicer of a home loan shall send an accurate payoff balance within a reasonable time, but in no case more than 7 business days, after the receipt of a written request for such balance from or on behal f of the borrower.” 15 U.S.C. § 1639g. “[A]ny creditor who fails to comply” is liable for certain remedies. I d. § 1640 (a)

. But the remedies against an assignee of a creditor are more limited. “[ A] ny civil action against a creditor for a violation of this subchapter .

. . with respect to a consumer credit transaction secured by real property may be maintained against any assignee of such creditor only if” two requirements are met. Id. § 1641(e)(1) . First, “the violation for which such action or proceeding is brought is apparent on the face of the disclosure statement provided in connection with such transaction pursuant to this subchapter.” Id. § 1641(e)(1)(A). Second, “the assignment to the assign ee was voluntary.” Id. § 1641(e)(1)(B). The Act does not define “disclosure statement.” We conclude that Evanto failed to state a claim against Fannie Mae because the failure to provide a payoff balance is not a violation “ apparent on the face of

Case: 15-11450 Date Filed: 03/01/2016 Page: 3 of 74 the discl osure statement provided in connection with such transaction pursuant to this subchapter , ” i d. § 1641(e) (1)

. A disclosure statement is a document provided before the extension of credit that s ets out the terms of the loan. But a payoff balance can be provided only after a loan has been made and contains the amount yet to be repaid

. There is no way that the failure to provide a payoff balance can appear on the face of the disclosure statement. We reach our conclusion based on
t he plain meaning of the te xt , and we reject Evanto’s argument that we should fix a supposed “loophole” in the statute. The statute uses the term “ the disclosure statement” to refer to documents provided before the extension of credit . Section 1638 uses the term to refer to disclosures that “shall be made before the credit is extended, ” id. § 1638 (b)(1) , which excludes the payoff balance

. In contrast, section 1639g does not use the term

“ the disclosure statement” or even the word “disclosure. ” See id. § 1639g. We presume that the statute uses the term “ the disclosure statement” consistently , s ee Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law 170 (2012) , especially because sections 1638 and 1641 connote one particular document by using a definite article (“the”) and a singular noun (“disclosure statement”) , see Rumsfeld v. Padilla , 542 U.S. 426, 434 (2004). Black’s Law Dictionary too defines “disclosure statement”

as a “ document containing relevant information that a reasonable person would find important in making a decision about a transaction or application.” Disclosure

Case: 15-11450 Date Filed: 03/01/2016 Page: 4 of 75 S tatement , Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). It further defines “loan

disclosure statement” as a “document setting forth the terms and conditions of a loan, including the amount borrowed, the interest rate, repayment methods, and the rights and responsibilities of the borrower and the lender.” Id. ; see also Disclosure , Merriam

- Webster’s Dictionary of Law (2d ed. 2011) (“[A] lender’s revelation of information to a consumer under the Truth in Lending Act that enables the consumer to make an intelligent decision about the loan .”) (emphasis added ) ).
T he Consumer Financial Protection Bureau , the agency res ponsible for administering the Act, states on its website that a “Truth

- in

- Lending Disclosure Statement provides information about the costs of your credit.” What Is a Truth

- in

Lending Disclosure? , Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau, http://www.consumerfinance.gov / askcfpb/ 180/ what

- is

- a - truth

- in

- lending

disclosure.html (last updated Oct. 26, 2015) (all Internet materials as visited March
1 , 2016, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file) . It continues, “ You receive a Truth

- in

- Lending disclosure twice: an initi al disclosure when you apply for a mortgage loan , and a final disclosure before closing.” Id. The National Consumer Law Center similarly explains , “The statute requires that closed

- end [credit] disclosures be made ‘before the credit is extended.’” Nat’l Consumer Law Ctr. , Truth in Lending § 4.4.1 (quoting 15 U.S.C. § 1638(b)(1))

.

Case: 15-11450 Date Filed: 03/01/2016 Page: 5 of 76 Although the issue in this appeal is a matter of first impression for any circuit, our interpretation of “the disclosure statement” is consistent with how
courts have used the t erm . The Third Circuit explained in dicta that the Act

“ provide [s] that as an incident to the extension of credit , the creditor must, in most instances, furnish the credit customer with a separate disclosure statement. ” Johnson v. McCrackin

- Sturman Ford, I nc. , 527 F.2d 257, 262 (3d Cir. 1975) (emphasis added). Several circuits, including this one, also have used the term “disclosure statement” to refer to a document provided at or before closing. See,
e.g. , Rodash v. AIB Mortg. Co

. , 16 F.3d 1142, 1143

– 44 (1 1th Cir. 1994), abrogated in part on other grounds , Veale v. Citibank, F.S.B. , 85 F.3d 577 (11th Cir. 1996); Iro a n yah v. Bank of Am. , 753 F.3d 686, 688

– 89 (7th Cir. 2014);
Vincent v. The Money Store , 736 F.3d 88, 9 2 (2d Cir. 2013); Keiran v. Home Capital, Inc. , 720 F.3d 721, 72 4

– 2 5 (8th Cir. 2013), vacated on other grounds , 135 S. Ct. 1152 (2015). Evanto advances policy reasons for extending the cause of action against assignees to include violations of section 1639g, but this argument fa ils. “I t is a well

- established principle of statutory construction that ‘when legislation expressly provides a particular remedy or remedies, courts should not expand the coverage of the statute to subsume other remedies.’” Florida v. Seminole Tribe of Fla

. , 181 F.3d 1237, 1248 (11th Cir. 1999) (quoting Tamiami Partners, Ltd. v. Miccosukee

Case: 15-11450 Date Filed: 03/01/2016 Page: 6 of 77 Tribe of Indians , 63 F.3 d 1030, 1049 (11th Cir. 1995) ). The plain meaning of the statute forecloses Evanto’s action, and “ [o]u r job is to follow the text even if doing

so will supposedly ‘undercut a basic objective of the statute , ’ ” Baker Botts L.L.P.
v. ASARCO LLC , 135 S. Ct. 2158, 2169 (2015) ( quoting Baker Botts , 135 S. Ct. at 2170 (Breyer, J., dissenting))

. IV. CONCLUSION We AFFIRM the dismissal o f Evanto’s amended complaint

. Case: 15-11450 Date Filed: 03/01/2016 Page: 7 of 7