In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________

No. 05-3984

SARAH HAMM,

Plaintiff-Appellant, v.

AMERIQUEST MORTGAGE COMPANY,

AMERIQUEST MORTGAGE SECURITIES,

INC., and AMC MORTGAGE SERVICES, INC.,

Defendants-Appellees. ____________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 05 C 227—Samuel Der-Yeghiayan, Judge.

____________

No. 06-3086

SHIRLEY JONES,

Plaintiff-Appellee, v.

AMERIQUEST MORTGAGE COMPANY,

AMERIQUEST MORTGAGE SECURITIES,

INC., and AMC MORTGAGE SERVICES, INC.,

Defendants-Appellants. ____________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 05 C 432—David H. Coar, Judge.

____________

ARGUED APRIL 13, 2007—DECIDED OCTOBER 17, 2007

____________
2 Nos. 05-3984, 06-3086

Before FLAUM, MANION, and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

WOOD, Circuit Judge. Plaintiffs Sarah Hamm and

Shirley Jones sued defendants Ameriquest Mortgage

Company (“Ameriquest”), Ameriquest Mortgage Securities,

Inc., and AMC Mortgage Services, Inc., in separate actions

brought under the Truth In Lending Act (“TILA”), 15

U.S.C. § 1640. Each of them claimed that Ameriquest, the

original lender, violated TILA by failing to state explicitly the payment period in the borrowers’ TILA Disclosure Statements. In addition, each asserted that

Ameriquest’s inclusion of a one-week rescission right

notice alongside the TILA-mandated three-day rescission

right notice violated TILA because it could cause borrowers

unknowingly to give up their TILA rescission rights. As

remedies, they claimed both damages and the right to

rescind their mortgages.

The two suits, though identical from a legal standpoint,

wound up before different district court judges; those

judges reached opposite results. In the Hamm action, the

district court granted summary judgment to the defendants on both claims; Hamm appeals based only on the

theory of liability relating to the payment period. In the

Jones action, the district court granted summary judgment to Jones based on Ameriquest’s failure properly to

state the payment period; it denied both Jones’s and

Ameriquest’s summary judgment motions on the argument relating to the notice of a right to rescind, concluding

that material issues of fact remained on that claim.

On the surface, it would appear that the Jones action is

not yet resolved in the district court. However, we have

held that,

once [a district court has] entered a judgment giving

the plaintiff all the relief that it was seeking, the

plaintiff’s remaining ground merged in the judgment,

which ended the case in the district court and there-
Nos. 05-3984, 06-3086 3

fore was appealable without the aid of Rule 54(b), even

though, should such a judgment be reversed on appeal,

the lawsuit would not be over, because the plaintiff

had an alternative theory of liability.

Ind. Harbor Belt R.R. Co. v. Am. Cyanamid Co., 916 F.2d

1174, 1183 (7th Cir. 1990). In short, a plaintiff can win

only once, and so it does not matter how many other

theories are left on the table if the claim itself has been

resolved. The judgment of the district court, which is

what we review, is final in Jones’s case and thus ripe

for appeal. Before this court, the defendants have addressed both theories of liability, while Jones argues that

her allegation of defective notice of the right to rescind

provides an alternative basis for affirming the district

court’s grant of summary judgment in her favor.

We conclude that the district court in the Jones action

reached the correct result on the payment period theory

of liability. That is enough to require reversal in Hamm’s

case and affirmance in Jones’s case. We do not reach the

issue concerning the notice of the right to rescind.

I

The facts in these two cases are not in dispute, and so

we review them here only briefly. On January 19, 2002,

Hamm entered into a loan transaction secured by a

mortgage with Ameriquest. On March 13, 2002, Jones did

the same thing. At closing, Hamm and Jones each signed

a form entitled “Disclosure Statement” that listed a

specific date as the due date for the first payment and

another specific date for the final payment.

Neither Disclosure Statement ever says, in so many

words, that payments will be made over a 360-month

period of time. Instead, the relevant part of the forms

looked like this (using Hamm’s as the example):
4 Nos. 05-3984, 06-3086

NUMBER OF

PAYMENTS

AMOUNT OF

PAYMENTS

PAYMENTS

ARE DUE

BEGINNING

 359 $541.92 03/01/2002

 1 $536.01 02/01/2032

Elsewhere on the form it indicates the “Total of Payments,” which in Hamm’s case was $195,085.29 and in

Jones’s case was $172,766.38. At no place on either

Disclosure Statement does the number “360” appear, nor

is there any reference to “360 months,” nor an indication

that payments are to be made monthly. On the other

hand, it does not take much calculation to realize that the

time between the first entry in the third column and

the last entry is just shy of thirty years, or 360 months.

Both Hamm and Jones signed other documents that

said things like “loan payments are required monthly” or

that at least used the term “monthly” when referring

generally to the required payments.

At their loan closings, Hamm and Jones also each

received copies of a “Notice to Cancel” form and a “One

Week Cancellation” form. The “Notice to Cancel” form

states that TILA allows three days for a borrower to cancel

a loan. The “One Week Cancellation” form informs the

borrower that Ameriquest gives her a right to cancel for

a full week. After the transactions were complete,

Ameriquest Mortgage Company sold the mortgages to

defendant Ameriquest Mortgage Securities; they are

both serviced by defendant AMC Mortgage Services.

In the Jones action, the district court entered judgment

against only defendant Ameriquest Mortgage Securities,

Inc., after concluding that Jones filed her suit after the

statutory deadline for relief other than rescission. It
Nos. 05-3984, 06-3086 5

dismissed the case as moot against the other two defendants. It also ordered Ameriquest to pay Jones’s attorneys’

fees and other costs. In the Hamm case, as we noted

earlier, the district court entered judgment for Ameriquest.

II

A

We begin with the plaintiffs’ complaint that the Disclosure Statements did not explicitly state the payment

period of their loans, as required by TILA. We review a

decision to grant summary judgment de novo. Conn.

Indem. Co. v. DER Travel Serv., Inc., 328 F.3d 347, 349

(7th Cir. 2003). In conducting our review, we look to the

language of the statute, the implementing regulation

(“Regulation Z,” promulgated by Federal Reserve Board

(“FRB”)), and the relevant FRB Staff Commentary. TILA

was written to serve more than each individual borrower’s

needs. Congress passed it to improve information in credit

transactions and thus enhance the efficiency of credit

markets, relying on “meaningful disclosure of credit terms

so that the consumer will be able to compare more readily

the various credit terms available” to achieve this goal.

15 U.S.C. § 1601(a).

Courts pay particular heed to the FRB Staff Commentary to TILA’s regulations when evaluating an alleged

TILA violation. The Supreme Court has held that “deference is especially appropriate in the process of interpreting

the Truth in Lending Act and Regulation Z [and] . . .

[u]nless demonstrably irrational, Federal Reserve Board

staff opinions construing the Act or Regulation should be

dispositive.” Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Milhollin, 444 U.S.

555, 565 (1980). In keeping with Milhollin, this court has

deferred to the views of the FRB, as expressed in the

Commentary, when we are called upon to interpret TILA.
6 Nos. 05-3984, 06-3086

Our treatment of the commentary interpreting 15 U.S.C.

§ 1638(a)(6), the portion of TILA at issue in this case, is no

exception. Clay v. Johnson, 264 F.3d 744, 748 (7th Cir.

2001).

TILA imposes an explicit requirement that a lender

include “[t]he number, amount, and due dates or period

of payments scheduled to repay the total of payments,”

in its Disclosure Statement to the borrower. 15

U.S.C. § 1638(a)(6) (emphasis added); see also 12 C.F.R.

§ 226.18(g)(1). The relevant section of the FRB commentary states that:

To meet this requirement creditors may list all of the

payment due dates. They also have the option of

specifying the “period of payments” scheduled to repay

the obligation. As a general rule, creditors that choose

this option must disclose the payment intervals or

frequency, such as “monthly” or “bi-weekly,” and the

calendar date the beginning payment is due. For

example, a creditor may disclose that payments are

due “monthly beginning on July 1, 1988.” This information, when combined with the number of payments,

is necessary to define the repayment period and

enable a consumer to determine all of the payment

due dates.

Supp. I, para. 18(g)(4)(I); 63 Fed. Reg. 16673. An “Exception” section immediately follows and allows some flexibility in the narrow situation where the first date of the

lending period is unknown at the time the loan is issued.

Supp. I, para. 18(g)(ii). This rule and exception are all that

the commentary has to say about § 226.18(g)’s requirement to disclose the payment period. The FRB’s interpretation does not strike us as so irrational that we would

be required to disregard it. We conclude, therefore, that

TILA requires a lender to state clearly on the Disclosure

Statement either the due dates or period of payments
Nos. 05-3984, 06-3086 7

scheduled. The question is whether TILA is satisfied if

the form provides only enough information from which the

consumer might infer either the due dates or the payment period.

TILA’s purpose is achieved by promoting uniformity in

credit documents. Atypical terms and forms can confuse

borrowers, leading them to agree to credit products that

they might have rejected had they understood them

properly. For that reason, TILA requires that many items

of information be disclosed in specified ways. If a lender

does not disclose one such piece of information in the

specified way, leaving the borrower to make assumptions,

then TILA has been violated. “[W]hether a particular

disclosure is clear for purposes of TILA is a question of

law that ‘depends on the contents of the form, not on how

it affects any particular reader.’ ” Handy v. Anchor Mortgage Corp., 464 F.3d 760, 764 (7th Cir. 2006) (citing Smith

v. Check-N-Go of Ill., Inc., 200 F.3d 511, 515 (7th Cir.

1999)). It is immaterial if the borrower in a particular

transaction made the right assumptions about the terms

and documents presented to her, if the form otherwise does

not comply with the statute and regulations.

We have held that, when it comes to TILA, “hypertechnicality reigns.” Handy, 464 F.3d at 764. (This is not,

we recognize, the formulation that some of our sister

circuits use. See, e.g., Santos-Rodriguez v. Doral Mortgage

Corp., 485 F.3d 12, 17 n.6 (1st Cir. 2007) (noting the

difference between our standard and that of other circuits)). Our decision on the adequacy of Ameriquest’s

disclosure of the payment period depends on just how

picky we think the statute is. The Supreme Court has

held that “[t]he concept of ‘meaningful disclosure’ that

animates TILA . . . cannot be applied in the abstract.

Meaningful disclosure does not mean more disclosure.

Rather, it describes a balance between competing considerations of complete disclosure . . . and the need to
8 Nos. 05-3984, 06-3086

avoid . . . [informational overload].” Milhollin, 444 U.S. at

568 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

Following Milhollin’s guidance, our approach means that

when completeness of disclosure does not lead to informational overload, completeness must be required. Rhetoric

to one side, this leads to an outcome that is fairly similar

to the one reached in our sister circuits.

We also strike the balance this way because the FRB

specifically rejected our attempts at a more functional

approach to TILA violations. In Carmichael v. Payment

Ctr., Inc., 336 F.3d 636, 641 (7th Cir. 2003), we held that

“courts are to evaluate § 1638(a)(6)’s strictures functionally, not in formalistic manner [sic].” Shortly after we

issued the Carmichael decision, the FRB amended its

commentary to avoid exactly the kind of result we

reached in Carmichael; it noted that our decision was the

impetus for its action. The crux of the revised commentary

is that when a specific requirement is straightforward, lenders should not be able to dance around it in

their disclosures. In other words, the FRB opted for

hypertechnicality.

B

In this case, Ameriquest cannot escape the fact that it

committed a technical TILA violation by failing explicitly

to state the payment period of Hamm’s and Jones’s loans

on the Disclosure Statements. We do not doubt that many

(or most) borrowers would understand that a mortgage

with 360 payments due over approximately 30 years

contemplates a payment by the borrower each month

during those 30 years. But unfortunately for Ameriquest,

the Disclosure Statements do not say that; they do not

even say that the transaction is for a “360-month loan” or

anything similar. All they say, as the table we

have provided above illustrates, is that 359 payments
Nos. 05-3984, 06-3086 9

have to be made; the first one is due on a particular

date, and after all 359 payments are made, one more

payment in a slightly different amount will be due on

another particular date. The latter date happens to fall

about 30 years after the first due date. A borrower reading this form alone would have to make assumptions

and take some steps in order to determine her payment

period. She could not, for example, simply postpone

payments 2-359 until approximately the last year of the

loan and make one payment per day. The borrower would

instead have to assume that her payments were evenly

spaced over the 30 years and that each payment was due

on the first of the month.

By contrast, punctilious compliance with TILA would

require only that the Disclosure Statement contain the

word “monthly” alongside the number of payments. This

would be neither burdensome for the lender nor so detailed that the borrower would be buried in information.

It serves both the goals of TILA and the needs of the

borrower. As we have already noted, other forms provided

to Hamm and Jones referred to a “monthly” payment

period, but nowhere on the Disclosure Forms was this

fact mentioned. Not on the front page, not on the back

page, not even in “fine print.” TILA does not require

people to dig through a raft of forms and make assumptions about which one is accurate and which trumps

another. If the Disclosure Forms provided to Hamm and

Jones had mentioned the “monthly” nature of the payments at all, we would have a different case here altogether.

Still, Ameriquest urges us to find that there are ambiguities in the statute, Regulation Z, and the Commentary

that would absolve it of its obligation to disclose the

payment period. For example, the Commentary refers to

the explicit disclosure of the pay period or scheduled

payment due dates as a “general rule.” Ameriquest inter-
10 Nos. 05-3984, 06-3086

prets this to imply that there are other, unstated ways to

satisfy the disclosure requirement. However, “[a] statute

and its implementing regulations should be read as a

whole and, where possible, afforded a harmonious interpretation.” Carmichael, 336 F.3d at 640. Here, they are

easily and best read to reinforce an explicit disclosure

requirement that can be made in just one of two ways,

and that recognizes one narrow exception to that rule.

Ameriquest also argues that the lack of the phrase

“using that term” in § 1638(a)(6) means that it is unclear

what exactly constitutes a proper disclosure of the payment period. It is true that in other sections of TILA, a

lender is required not just to make a particular disclosure,

but also to make that disclosure using a particular term.

See 15 U.S.C. § 1638(a)(3) (requiring disclosure of the

“finance charge” and that the disclosure “us[e] that term”).

The TILA sections that command the use of a particular

term, however, are different from the disclosure requirement imposed by § 1638(a)(6) in a critical way.

TILA requires the use of a designated term for items

that might not otherwise be identifiable to a borrower

if not labeled in a consistent way, such as “finance charge,”

“total of payments,” and “annual percentage rate.” See

15 U.S.C. § 1638(a). By contrast, the word “monthly” or

“bi-weekly” does not need to be labeled as a “payment

period” in order to be understood by a borrower. That

seems to be precisely the type of information overload that

Milhollin sought to avoid. The difference is made clear by

§ 1638(a)(8), which requires that the lender provide

“[d]escriptive explanations of the terms ‘amount financed,’

‘finance charge,’ ‘annual percentage rate,’ ‘total of payments,’ and ‘total sale price’ as specified by the Board” and

also “us[e] th[ose] terms.” These special terms not only

have to be used, but also have to be explained. Thus, the

requirement to use a specified term is one mechanism

that TILA uses to ensure uniformity; there is no neces-
Nos. 05-3984, 06-3086 11

sary implication that other aspects of the statute require

the same treatment. Section 1638(a)(1), for example,

requires disclosure of the “identity of the creditor required to make disclosure,” but does not require the

lender to use the exact term “identity.” That does not mean

the identity requirement can be satisfied through implication alone, nor would any lender expect that to be the

case.

We emphasize that we are not holding that a Disclosure

Form that fails to use the magic word “monthly” will

always fail to comply with the requirement in § 1638(a)(6)

of disclosing the payment period. The Commentary

itself lists “monthly” and “bi-weekly” only as two examples of the way in which a lender might comply with

the rule. The key point is that the borrower should not

have to make any assumptions; she should be told her

payment period in explicit terms. (For example, a Disclosure Statement that said “payment is due on the first of

every month from March 1, 2002, through January 1,

2032,” would effectively tell the borrower that her payment

period is monthly without using the word “monthly.”)

Because Ameriquest’s form required such an assumption, it did not meet TILA’s requirements.

III

At one level, it may seem unrealistic to think that

Hamm and Jones did not realize that they were obligated

to make monthly payments on their 30-year mortgages.

Nonetheless, in today’s diversified credit markets, such

assumptions are not always well founded. There are many

credit products now where the borrower pays nothing for

a year or two and then begins regular payments, or where

payments are clumped together for a time, to be followed

by a balloon payment, or where the loan is structured in

other ways to induce the borrower to patronize a particular
12 Nos. 05-3984, 06-3086

lender or to facilitate a transaction for a cash-strapped

borrower. Here, Hamm and Jones could not look at the

Disclosure Statement and know with certainty how often

their payments were due, without additional information.

That is the information that TILA required Ameriquest

to furnish, but that it did not.

Ameriquest has not offered any reason to conclude that

TILA’s requirement that the Disclosure Statement include explicit information about the payment period did

not apply here or that its forms complied with the rules.

Ameriquest violated TILA, even if unintentionally, and the

plaintiffs are entitled to relief. We AFFIRM the district

court’s grant of summary judgment against Ameriquest

Mortgage Securities, Inc., in Jones’s case. We REVERSE

the district court’s grant of summary judgment for defendant Ameriquest Mortgage Securities, Inc., against

Hamm and hold that the district court must enter judgment in favor of Hamm against that company. Summary

judgment in favor of Ameriquest Mortgage Company and

AMC Mortgage Services, Inc., is proper in both cases, and

we AFFIRM both district courts to that extent. Finally, we

REMAND these cases for further proceedings consistent

with this opinion.

A true Copy:

Teste: 

 ________________________________

Clerk of the United States Court of

Appeals for the Seventh Circuit 

USCA-02-C-0072—10-17-07