2015 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

7-13-2015

Patricia Evankavitch v. Green Tree Servicing LLC

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Recommended Citation

"Patricia Evankavitch v. Green Tree Servicing LLC" (2015). 2015 Decisions. Paper 713.

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PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 14-1114

___________

PATRICIA EVANKAVITCH,

v.

GREEN TREE SERVICING, LLC,

Appellant

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. No. 3-12-cv-02564)

District Judge: Honorable James M. Munley

____________________________________

Argued: December 9, 2014

Before: FUENTES, FISHER, and KRAUSE, Circuit Judges

(Filed: July 13, 2015)

_____________

Carlo Sabatini, Esq.

216 North Blakely Street

Dunmore, PA 18512
2

Deepak Gupta, Esq. [Argued]

Gupta Wessler

1735 20th Street, NW

Washington, DC 20009

Counsel for Appellee

Barbara K. Hager, Esq.

Henry F. Reichner, Esq. 

Reed Smith

1717 Arch Street

Three Logan Square, Suite 3100

Philadelphia, PA 19103

David J. Bird, Esq. [Argued]

Reed Smith

225 Fifth Avenue

Suite 1200

Pittsburgh, PA 15222

Counsel for Appellant

___________

OPINION OF THE COURT

KRAUSE, Circuit Judge.

Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act 

(“FDCPA”), 15 U.S.C. § 1692, et seq., a debt collector is 
3

liable to a consumer for contacting third parties in pursuit of 

that consumer’s debt unless the communication falls under a 

statutory exception. One of those exceptions covers 

communication with a third party “for the purpose of 

acquiring location information about the consumer” but, even 

then, prohibits more than one such contact “unless the debt 

collector reasonably believes that the earlier response of such 

person is erroneous or incomplete and that such person now 

has correct or complete location information.” 15 U.S.C. § 

1692b. In this appeal following a jury verdict and judgment 

entered against a debt collector for repeated contact with third 

parties, we consider a matter of first impression among the 

Courts of Appeals: whether the burden in such a case is on 

the debt collector to prove or the consumer to disprove that 

the challenged third-party communications fit within § 

1692b’s exception for acquisition of location information. 

We conclude that the debt collector bears that burden and 

will therefore affirm.

I. Facts and Procedural History

In 2005, Patricia Evankavitch executed a $43,300.00

mortgage against her property so that she could, in turn, lend 

money to her son, Christopher.

1

 In order for Evankavitch to 

repay the loan, Christopher regularly deposited checks into 

her bank account, and she then paid the mortgage company. 

Eventually, however, Christopher had financial difficulties 

and stopped depositing his checks. As a result, Evankavitch

fell behind on her loan payments. In May 2011, with 

 

1 For ease of reference, we refer to Evankavitch’s 

children by their first names throughout this opinion.
4

Evankavitch four months behind, the mortgagee’s rights were 

assigned to Green Tree Servicing, LLC (“Green Tree”).

2

 

Green Tree and Evankavitch had periodic 

conversations about the loan over the next several months. 

Evankavitch initiated one of those discussions by calling 

Green Tree from a cell phone belonging to her daughter,

Cheryl, which apparently led Green Tree to record Cheryl’s

number as an additional number where it could reach

Evankavitch. Thus, towards the end of 2011, Green Tree 

made numerous unsuccessful calls to Evankavitch at both 

Evankavitch’s and Cheryl’s numbers. 

In January 2012, Green Tree reached Cheryl on her

cell phone. Cheryl said that she would ask her mother to call 

Green Tree. A month later, Evankavitch called Green Tree

again from Cheryl’s cell phone. This time, she informed

Green Tree that the number was her daughter’s and instructed

Green Tree to stop using it. Instead, over the next several

months, representatives from Green Tree continued to call

both Evankavitch’s and Cheryl’s numbers and left several

messages on Cheryl’s voicemail requesting that Evankavitch 

call Green Tree. 

 

2 Ordinarily, creditors are not considered debt 

collectors under the FDCPA. See Pollice v. Nat’l Tax 

Funding, L.P., 225 F.3d 379, 403 (3d Cir. 2000). However, 

an assignee of a loan “may be deemed a ‘debt collector’ if the 

obligation is already in default when it is assigned.” Id. 

Green Tree assumed the assignment under those 

circumstances and thus constitutes a debt collector for 

FDCPA purposes in this case.
5

In August 2012, after failing to reach Evankavitch, 

Green Tree began calling Evankavitch’s neighbors, Robert 

and Sally Heim. After a Green Tree employee asked Mr. 

Heim to have Evankavitch call Green Tree, Mr. Heim passed 

Green Tree’s contact information on to Evankavitch.

3

 After 

two more months without hearing from Evankavitch, Green 

Tree made at least three more calls to the Heims, leaving two 

messages and speaking with Mr. Heim once more. Mr. Heim 

told Green Tree in that final call that Christopher had moved 

to California and that Green Tree should stop calling the 

Heims. After learning of these communications, Evankavitch

brought suit, claiming, among other things, that Green Tree 

impermissibly contacted Mr. Heim in its debt collection 

efforts, in violation of § 1692b-c of the FDCPA. 

A. The District Court’s Challenged Rulings

With limited exceptions, the FDCPA forbids a debt 

collector from contacting third parties in its attempts to 

collect a consumer’s debt, 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(b), and makes 

the debt collector liable in an individual action for statutory 

damages up to $1,000, over and above any actual damages, 

id. at § 1692k(a). In both an in limine ruling and in its jury 

charge, the District Court took the position that when a debt 

collector alleges that it made a contact that falls within the 

 

3 Although Green Tree suggests otherwise in its 

briefing, it cites little in the record that indicates that it

actually attempted to discern the location of Evankavitch

during this call or any subsequent call. Instead, these calls to 

the Heims appear to have been made with the same purpose 

as the calls made to Cheryl, i.e., for these third parties to 

function as Green Tree’s message service in soliciting a 

return call from Evankavitch.
6

exception for acquisition of location information, the debt 

collector has the burden to prove the exception as an 

affirmative defense. Specifically, the District Court advised

the jury that Evankavitch and Green Tree “agree that the Fair 

Debt Collection Practices Act is violated in the sense that 

they agree that the Defendant contacted third parties and did 

so multiple times, . . . which is generally a violation of the 

Act.” App. 404-405. It went on to state that the “burden is 

on the Defendant to determine and establish that it sought 

location information.” App. 405. Thus, the District Court 

instructed: 

[T]he issues for you to decide are[:] one, 

whether the Defendant has established that it 

contacted the third parties to obtain location 

information; and two, whether the Defendant 

contacted the third party multiple times because 

the Defendant reasonably believed that the 

earlier response of the third party is incorrect or 

incomplete, and that the third party now has the 

correct or the complete location information. 

App. 408.

The jury returned a verdict in favor of Evankavitch. 

The District Court entered judgment in her favor for $1,000,

and this appeal ensued. Green Tree argues on appeal that

both the in limine ruling and the jury instructions were

improper, such that the verdict should be vacated and this 

matter re-tried with the burden of proof on Evankavitch to 

disprove that any exception applied. 
7

II. Jurisdiction and Standard of Review

The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 

U.S.C. § 1331. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 

1291. 

When reviewing a jury charge, “we exercise plenary 

review to determine whether the instruction misstated the 

applicable law.” Franklin Prescriptions, Inc. v. N.Y. Times 

Co., 424 F.3d 336, 338 (3d Cir. 2005).

4

 We also exercise 

plenary review over legal rulings made pursuant to an in 

limine order. United States v. Romano, 849 F.2d 812, 814 (3d 

Cir. 1988). 

 

4 Evankavitch argues that Green Tree failed to preserve 

its objection to the charge so that we should reverse only if 

the error is “fundamental and highly prejudicial or if the 

instructions are such that the jury is without adequate 

guidance on a fundamental question and our failure to 

consider the error would result in a miscarriage of justice.” 

Fashauer v. N.J. Transit Rail Operations, 57 F.3d 1269, 1289 

(3d Cir. 1995) (internal quotation marks omitted). We 

disagree. After a careful review of the record, we conclude 

that Green Tree’s trial counsel adequately raised its 

objections and that the District Court made a definitive and 

“explicit rejection of [Green Tree’s] proposed instructions.” 

Collins v. Alco Parking Corp., 448 F.3d 652, 656 (3d Cir. 

2006). 
8

III. Discussion

A. The FDCPA and Its General Prohibitions on 

Third-Party Contacts

The FDCPA was enacted in 1977 in response to “the 

abundant evidence of the use of abusive, deceptive, and unfair 

debt collection practices by many debt collectors.” Lesher v. 

Law Offices of Mitchell N. Kay, PC, 650 F.3d 993, 996 (3d 

Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). The purpose of 

the Act is both to “eliminate abusive debt collection 

practices” and to “‘insure that those debt collectors who 

refrain from using abusive debt collection practices are not 

competitively disadvantaged.’” Id. (quoting 15 U.S.C. § 

1692(e)). As remedial legislation, the Act is construed 

broadly to effectuate those purposes. Caprio v. Healthcare 

Revenue Recovery Grp., LLC, 709 F.3d 142, 148 (3d Cir. 

2013).

“[T]he invasion of privacy,” we recently explained, is 

“a core concern animating the FDCPA.” Douglass v. 

Convergent Outsourcing, 765 F.3d 299, 303 (3d Cir. 2014); 

accord 15 U.S.C. 1692(a) (stating that unfair debt collection 

practices lead to, among other things, “invasions of individual 

privacy”). One way Congress addressed this concern was to 

“prohibit[] a debt collector from communicating with third 

parties about the consumer’s debt.” Edwards v. Niagara 

Credit Solutions, Inc., 584 F.3d 1350, 1353 (11th Cir. 2009)

(citing § 1692c(b)). Legislative history indicates this 

prohibition was considered an “extremely important 

protection.” S. Rep. 95-382, at 4 (1977), reprinted in 1977 

U.S.C.C.A.N. 1695, 1699. 
9

In recognition of a “debt collector’s legitimate need to 

seek the whereabouts of missing debtors,” id. at 4, however,

the Act provides an exception to this general prohibition for 

communications made “for the purpose of acquiring location 

information about the consumer.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692b.5 In 

other words, a debt collector may contact third parties to 

ascertain where it may locate the consumer. That exception is 

itself limited, however, as debt collectors may “not 

communicate with any such person more than once . . . unless 

the debt collector reasonably believes that the earlier response 

of such person is erroneous or incomplete and that such 

person now has correct or complete location information.” 

Id. at § 1692b(3). 

None of our sister Circuits has yet addressed the 

question whether the consumer has the burden of disproving 

this exception as part of its case-in-chief, or whether the debt 

collector carries the burden of proving the exception as an 

affirmative defense, and the district courts have taken 

divergent approaches.

6

It is to this question we now turn.

 

5 Other exceptions to the general prohibition on thirdparty communications include prior consent by a consumer, 

the express permission of a court of competent jurisdiction, 

and communications reasonably necessary for a debt collector 

to effectuate a post-judgment judicial remedy. 15 U.S.C. § 

1692c(b).

6 Compare, e.g., Williams v. Web Equity Holdings, 

LLC, No. 13-13723, 2014 WL 3845952, at *4 (E.D. Mich. 

Aug. 5, 2014) (“The language of § 1692b(3) creates an 

exception for debt collectors seeking to locate the debtor to 

contact persons they reasonably believe have such location 
10

B. Determining Burdens of Proof

We generally start our analysis with the plain text of a

statute. But where, as here, that text “is silent on the 

allocation of the burden of persuasion,” we “begin with the 

ordinary default rule that plaintiffs bear the risk of failing to 

prove their claims.” Schaffer ex rel. Schaffer v. Weast, 546 

U.S. 49, 56 (2005). This long-standing, common-sense rule 

stems from the understanding that “[t]he burdens of pleading 

and proof with regard to most facts have been and should be 

assigned to the plaintiff who generally seeks to change the 

present state of affairs and who therefore naturally should be 

expected to bear the risk of failure of proof or persuasion.” 2 

McCormick On Evid. § 337 (7th ed. 2013). 

 

information. This, in turn, imposes a pleading burden on 

plaintiffs alleging a violation of this section to provide facts 

to support an inference that the debt collector had no reason 

to believe that the person knew the whereabouts of the debtor 

or that they provided an incomplete or erroneous response.”), 

with Kempa v. Cadlerock Joint Ventures, L.P., No. 10-11696, 

2011 WL 761500, at *4 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 25, 2011) 

(“CadleRock has not provided any evidence to show that, in 

any of her messages or communications to Kempa’s parents, 

Hunt stated that she was confirming or correcting Kempa’s 

location information. . . . Since the FDCPA is a strict liability 

act, Kempa is entitled to summary judgment with regards to 

Kempa’s 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(b) claim.”), and Kasalo v. 

Monco Law Offices, S.C., No. 09-2567, 2009 WL 4639720, at 

*6 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 7, 2009) (“[W]e treat the exception in 

Section 1692b(3) on which defendant relies as an affirmative 

defense, which defendant has the burden of proving.”). 
11

Green Tree essentially asks that we end our inquiry at 

this point and treat the default rule as an absolute one. We 

decline, for “when both a statute and its legislative history are 

silent on the question” of the burden of proof, “[i]t is common 

ground that no single principle or rule solves all cases by 

setting forth a general test.” Schaffer, 546 U.S. at 62 (2005) 

(Stevens, J., concurring) (citing Alaska Dep’t of Envtl. 

Conservation v. E.P.A., 540 U.S. 461, 494 n.17).

7

 

Beyond the ordinary default rule that a plaintiff bears 

the burden of proving her claims, we glean from decisions of 

the Supreme Court, this Court, and other Courts of Appeals a 

 

7 The FDCPA’s legislative history, while not 

completely silent on the subject, offers little insight into 

Congress’s intent. At the beginning of the legislative process, 

the House of Representatives placed the burden of proof on 

the debt collector after a minimal showing by the consumer. 

The House proposed a burden-shifting framework under 

which, if a consumer alleged that a debt collector 

inappropriately contacted a third party and pleaded that he or 

she did not consent to any third-party contacts, the burden of 

proof would shift to the debt collector. H. Rep. 95-131, 19

(1977). Among other changes, and without a readily apparent 

explanation, the Senate did not include that subsection in its

version of the Act, S. Rep. 95-382 (1977), reprinted in 1977 

U.S.C.C.A.N. 1695, which the House adopted in its entirety

by floor amendment, avoiding a conference committee, 123 

Cong. Rec. 28109 (Sept. 8, 1977). Given this ambiguity, and 

lacking “that veritable Rosetta Stone of legislative 

archaeology, a crystal clear Committee Report,” United States 

v. R.L.C., 503 U.S. 291, 309 (1992) (Scalia, J., concurring in 

part), we do not accord weight to this legislative history.
12

number of factors relevant to our analysis here, including: (1) 

whether the defense is framed as an exception to a statute’s 

general prohibition or an element of a prima facie case; (2) 

whether the statute’s general structure and scheme indicate 

where the burden should fall; (3) whether a plaintiff will be 

unfairly surprised by the assertion of a defense; (4) whether a 

party is in particular control of information necessary to prove 

or disprove the defense; and (5) other policy or fairness 

considerations. We address each factor below.

1. Statutory Exceptions

The Supreme Court has instructed that while the

default rule applies to “most” disputes about burdens, 

Schaffer, 546 U.S. at 57, another “general rule of statutory 

construction” provides “that the burden of proving 

justification or exemption under a special exception to the 

prohibitions of a statute generally rests on one who claims its 

benefits,” FTC v. Morton Salt Co., 334 U.S. 37, 44-45 (1948); 

see also Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Lab., 554 U.S. 84, 

91 (2008) (repeating “the familiar principle that ‘[w]hen a 

proviso . . . carves an exception out of the body of a statute or 

contract those who set up such exception must prove it’”) 

(quoting Javierre v. Cent. Altagracia, 217 U.S. 502, 508 

(1910)); United States v. Taylor, 686 F.3d 182, 190 & n.5 (3d 

Cir. 2012) (compiling “numerous Supreme Court decisions” 

for the proposition that “where the statute contains . . . an 

exception, the defendant bears the burden of proving it”). 

This “longstanding convention is part of the backdrop against 

which the Congress writes laws, and we respect it unless we 

have compelling reasons to think that Congress meant to put 

the burden of persuasion on the other side.” Meacham, 554 

U.S. at 91-92. 
13

Here, § 1692c(b) states that “[e]xcept as provided in 

section 1692b . . . a debt collector may not communicate, in 

connection with the collection of any debt, . . . [with third 

parties].” 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(b). Thus, the FDCPA generally 

prohibits a debt collector from contacting third parties, with 

the debt collector’s ability to seek location information 

framed as an exception to this general prohibition. Repeat 

contacts made pursuant to that exception are even further

limited, with telltale language likewise indicative of an 

affirmative defense: 

Any debt collector communicating with any 

person other than the consumer for the purpose 

of acquiring location information about the 

consumer shall . . . not communicate with any 

such person more than once unless requested to 

do so by such person or unless the debt 

collector reasonably believes that the earlier 

response of such person is erroneous or 

incomplete and that such person now has 

correct or complete location information[.]

15 U.S.C. § 1692b(3) (emphasis added); see United States v. 

Franchi-Forlando, 838 F.2d 585, 591 (1st Cir. 1988) (Breyer, 

J.) (stating that introducing provisions with the words

“unless” and “except” may indicate an affirmative defense). 

Moreover, in assessing which party has the burden of 

proof under this rule, courts often “focus[] on the relationship 

between the defense in question and the plaintiff’s primary 

case,” and “on whether a defense raises factual or legal issues 

other than those put in play by the plaintiff’s cause of action.” 

In re Sterten, 546 F.3d 278, 284 (3d Cir. 2008). Put 

differently, as we recently held in the criminal context, 
14

“[w]hether a particular statutory phrase constitutes a defense 

or an element of the offense . . . turns on whether the statutory 

definition is such that the crime may not be properly 

described without reference to the exception.” Taylor, 686 

F.3d at 191 (internal quotation marks omitted). If that is the 

case, “the exception is an element of the crime”; if not, the 

exception is an affirmative defense. Id.

In the case of the FDCPA, no reference to the Act’s 

exceptions is necessary to discern that calls to third parties in 

pursuit of collecting a consumer’s debt are prohibited. 

Instead, what constitutes a violation is apparent from the plain 

language of § 1692c(b). Thus, we find no compelling reason 

to reverse the “longstanding convention” that a party seeking 

shelter in an exception—here, the debt collector—has the 

burden to prove it. Meacham, 554 U.S. at 91.

2. The Statutory Scheme

The structure of the statute, another useful indicator of 

Congressional intent, also leads us to place the burden of 

proof on the debt collector. See United Sav. Ass’n of Tex. v. 

Timbers of Inwood Forest Assocs., Ltd., 484 U.S. 365, 371 

(1988) (“A provision that may seem ambiguous in isolation is 

often clarified by the remainder of the statutory scheme.”); 

Gwaltney of Smithfield, Ltd. v. Chesapeake Bay Found., Inc., 

484 U.S. 49, 59-60 (1987) (analyzing statutory language in a 

way that is in accord with the “language and structure” of the 

section of law at issue). 

We find persuasive in this regard that the language and 

interaction of the general prohibition in § 1692c(b) and its

exception for location information in § 1692b closely track

the language and interaction of § 1692k, which imposes civil 
15

liability for FDCPA violations, and its two exceptions, which

are widely recognized as affirmative defenses. See Jerman v. 

Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer & Ulrich LPA, 559 U.S. 

573, 578 (2010) (citing 15 U.S.C §§ 1692k(c) and (e) for the 

proposition that “[t]he Act contains two exceptions to 

provisions imposing liability on debt collectors”). The first of 

these is the so-called good faith error defense, which

explicitly places the burden on the debt collector to prove that 

it acted unintentionally and had procedures in place to avoid 

such an error. 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(c).8 The second provides a 

safe harbor for a debt collector that seeks and receives legal 

opinions from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

before they proceed. 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(e).9 Although this 

second exception lacks the explicit burden-shifting language 

of the first, both are delineated as affirmative defenses by § 

1692k(a)’s general statement that a debt collector shall be 

held liable “[e]xcept as otherwise provided by this section,”

with the particular affirmative defenses described in separate 

subsections. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692k(a), (c), (e).

 

8 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(c) states: “A debt collector may 

not be held liable . . . if [it] shows by a preponderance of 

evidence that the violation was not intentional and resulted 

from a bona fide error notwithstanding the maintenance of 

procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such error.”

 

9 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(e) states: “No provision of this 

section imposing any liability shall apply to any act done or 

omitted in good faith in conformity with any advisory opinion 

of the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] . . . .”
16

The location-information exception at issue in this case

qualifies § 1692c(b)’s general prohibition against third-party 

contacts in almost identical terms, providing that third-party 

contacts are forbidden “[e]xcept as provided in section 

1692b,” and setting off the description of the exception in that

separate section. Such placement of the exception and the 

general prohibition in different parts of the statute has been 

recognized by the Supreme Court as indicative of an 

affirmative defense. See Meacham, 554 U.S. at 87, 91 

(concluding that an exception for employer conduct otherwise 

prohibited by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act 

constituted an affirmative defense based in part on “how the 

statute reads, with exemptions laid out apart from the 

prohibitions”). Thus, the statutory structure and the parallels 

between the language of § 1692c(b), with its exception for 

location-information in § 1692b, and § 1692k(a), with its

well-established affirmative defenses in §§ 1692k(c) and 

1692k(e), strongly indicate that § 1692b also was intended to 

be an affirmative defense. See Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & 

Sons, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 1351, 1362 (2013) (“[W]e normally 

presume that . . . words . . . carry the same meaning when 

they appear in different but related sections.”); Gwaltney, 484 

U.S. at 59-60 (interpreting statute in accord with its general 

language and structure).

Green Tree attempts to differentiate § 1692k on the 

ground that its exceptions require a showing of subjective 

intent or good faith and thus are appropriately deemed

affirmative defenses because the proof is in the possession of

the debt collector. In contrast, Green Tree argues, one of §

1692b’s subsections, the provision that allows for follow-up 

calls to obtain location information if the debt collector 

“reasonably believes” the third party did not originally 
17

provide and now has complete or accurate information, 

imports an objective test into § 1692b, such that the exception 

can and should be disproven by the plaintiff.10 Green Tree’s 

argument proves too much, however, for the sine qua non of 

any communication that qualifies under § 1692b, whether 

initial or follow up, is that the communication was “for the 

purpose of” acquiring location information—a question of 

subjective intent that is appropriate, even by Green Tree’s 

logic, for treatment as an affirmative defense.

3. Avoiding Surprise and Undue 

Prejudice

Another factor for our consideration in categorizing an 

exception as an affirmative defense is the need to avoid unfair

surprise and undue prejudice. See Sterten, 546 F.3d at 285; 

see also Ingraham v. United States, 808 F.2d 1075, 1079 (5th 

Cir. 1987). In examining this concern, we consider, given 

what a plaintiff is “already required to show” to prove its 

case, whether a defendant’s failure to raise the specific issue

 

10 In support, Green Tree cites to the Fourth Circuit’s 

unpublished, per curiam opinion in Worsham v. Accounts 

Receivable Management., Inc., 497 F. App’x 274, 277 (4th 

Cir. 2012). Worsham, however, did not address the burden of 

proof under § 1692b but only the standard for reasonableness 

under § 1692b(3), concluding “[t]he use of the word 

‘reasonably’ indicates that this is an objective standard that 

the debt collector must meet to avoid liability under the 

FDCPA.” Id. Moreover, albeit in dictum, the court’s 

reference to the objective standard as one “the debt collector 

must meet,” would appear, if anything, to undermine Green 

Tree’s position. 
18

would otherwise “deprive[] [a plaintiff] of an opportunity to 

rebut that defense or to alter her litigation strategy 

accordingly.” Sterten, 546 F.3d at 285.

In Sterten, a consumer brought a case pursuant to the 

Truth in Lending Act (“TILA”), 15 U.S.C. § 1601, et seq., 

alleging that a creditor failed to accurately disclose finance 

charges in connection with a home mortgage. 546 F.3d at 

281. We found no unfair surprise when a defendant,

referencing a general denial in its answer to the complaint, 

later sought shelter in TILA’s “tolerances provision,” a 

section of the statute that specifies the extent to which a 

lender may miscalculate a finance charge before incurring 

liability.

11

 See id. at 285-87 (examining 15 U.S.C. § 1605(f)). 

In concluding there was no undue prejudice to the plaintiffconsumer as a consequence of the defendant’s failure to raise

the tolerances provision as an affirmative defense, we 

reasoned that the very same analysis that a consumer would 

undertake to prove that a disclosure was inaccurate would 

also reveal whether the inaccuracy fell within the tolerances 

provision. Id. at 285. In other words, proving the claim 

would necessarily disprove the defense, and the consumer 

therefore would neither have sought different discovery nor 

altered her trial strategy had the defendant affirmatively 

pleaded the defense, rather than a general denial. Id.

 

11 In Sterten, we addressed the burden of pleading 

rather than the burden of proof at trial, a distinction without a 

difference for purposes of today’s analysis. See Taylor v. 

Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880, 907 (2008) (stating that when a party 

seeks shelter in an affirmative defense it is “[o]rdinarily . . .

incumbent on the defendant to plead and prove such a 

defense”).
19

The exception we consider here stands in stark 

contrast. If a debt collector acknowledges that it made a 

generally prohibited call, but contends it did so based on a 

purpose or reasonable belief that would exempt it from 

liability, a diligent consumer will need to explore the debt 

collector’s knowledge and intent. Thus, a consumer faced 

with the assertion that a call was made pursuant to the 

FDCPA’s location-information exception would reasonably

change her discovery and trial strategy to prove that the debt 

collector was not seeking location information, or, in a 

follow-up call, did not have a reasonable belief that the earlier 

information was incorrect and likely to be corrected. 

Accordingly, considerations of unfair surprise and undue 

prejudice also counsel in favor of finding that § 1692b is an 

affirmative defense.

4. The Party with Peculiar Knowledge 

of the Relevant Facts 

Another general rule of statutory construction, “that 

where the facts with regard to an issue lie peculiarly in the 

knowledge of a party, that party has the burden of proving the 

issue,” also indicates the burden rests with the debt collector. 

Dixon v. United States, 548 U.S. 1, 9 (2006) (internal 

quotation marks omitted); accord Nat’l Commc’ns Ass’n Inc. 

v. AT&T Corp., 238 F.3d 124, 130 (2d Cir. 2001) (noting that 

“all else being equal, the burden is better placed on the party 

with easier access to relevant information”). This “ordinary 

rule, based on considerations of fairness, does not place the 

burden upon a litigant of establishing facts peculiarly within 

the knowledge of his adversary.” Schaffer, 546 U.S. at 60

(quoting United States v. N.Y., N.H. & H.R. Co., 355 U.S. 

253, 256 n.5 (1957)); see also Gomez v. Toledo, 446 U.S. 

635, 640-41 (1980) (holding that qualified immunity is an 
20

affirmative defense to a § 1983 action in part because the 

facts that might support the defense are in the possession of 

the official asserting it). 

Here, Green Tree has unique access to the information 

at issue: its purpose for making the calls to third parties and 

its basis, if any, when making follow-up calls, to reasonably 

believe the third parties did not originally provide and later

had correct or complete information. Where the consumer

challenges a communication from a debt collector to the

consumer herself under the FDCPA, the consumer can be 

expected to attach and offer into evidence a copy of a written 

communication, see, e.g., McLaughlin v. Phelan Hallinan & 

Schmieg, LLP, 756 F.3d 240, 243 (3d Cir. 2014) (examining 

letter from a law firm to a consumer), or to plead and testify 

about a verbal communication, see, e.g., Hoover v. Monarch 

Recovery Mgmt., Inc., 888 F. Supp. 2d 589, 596 (E.D. Pa. 

2012) (examining allegedly harassing telephone calls). 

Where the communication is from a debt collector to a third 

party, however, the consumer will have no first-hand 

knowledge of the conversation, and the third party cannot 

reasonably be expected to keep notes about or recall in detail 

random calls to his or her home. See Lupyan v. Corinthian 

Colls. Inc., 761 F.3d 314, 322 (3d Cir. 2014) (recognizing 

that only the most “enterprising (or particularly compulsive) 

individual” would “maintain logs of incoming” 

correspondence). 

This reality was laid bare when, at trial and in its 

briefing before us, Green Tree was unable to adduce any

credible evidence—despite deposition testimony from 

multiple call-center employees, a corporate designee’s pretrial 

deposition, and two days of trial testimony with a recess for 

the express purpose of allowing that same corporate designee 
21

to search Green Tree’s records yet again—that Mr. Heim 

originally gave incorrect or incomplete information or that the 

calls made to the Heims were for the purpose of acquiring 

new or updated location information about Evankavitch.

12

 

Moreover, when questioned at argument as to how 

Evankavitch would prove her claim if we were to remand and 

place the burden on her, Green Tree candidly acknowledged

that her case would be difficult because Mr. Heim could not 

recall significant details about the conversations. Thus, if

Green Tree’s reading of the statute were correct, the absence 

of information—seemingly caused by its own lax recordkeeping—would inure to its benefit, and the only party with 

any realistic ability to document the conversation would be 

motivated to do the opposite. Common sense dictates against 

this result.

The Federal Communications Commission’s (“FCC”)

interpretation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act

(“TCPA”), an analogous consumer protection statute, rests

upon the same premise. The TCPA makes it unlawful “to 

make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes 

or made with the prior express consent of the called party) 

using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial 

or prerecorded voice . . . to any telephone number assigned to 

 

12 Nor was Green Tree able to adduce such evidence 

with regard to the calls to Evankavitch’s daughter. Rather, 

because Evankavitch had placed two calls to Green Tree from 

Cheryl’s cellphone (albeit, in one of them, to advise Green 

Tree that the number was her daughter’s and should not be 

called), Green Tree urged the jury to conclude that the 

repeated calls to Cheryl did not constitute third-party calls at 

all.
22

a . . . cellular telephone service.” 47 U.S.C. § 

227(b)(1)(A)(iii)). Put differently, the statute forbids, among 

other things, autodialing a person’s cell phone, with two 

exceptions: consent and emergency. 

Like the FDCPA, the TCPA is silent about the burden 

of proving these exceptions. However, pursuant to a 

declaratory ruling by the FCC, “the creditor should be 

responsible for demonstrating that the consumer provided 

prior express consent,” 23 F.C.C.R. 559, 565 (Jan. 4, 2008),

and the courts generally have placed the burden to prove 

these TCPA exceptions on the creditor, see Osorio v. State 

Farm Bank, F.S.B., 746 F.3d 1242, 1253 (11th Cir. 2014); 

Hartley-Culp v. Credit Mgmt. Co., No. 14-0282, 2014 WL 

4630852, at *2 (M.D. Pa. Sept. 15, 2014); Elkins v. Medco 

Health Solutions, Inc., No. 12-2141, 2014 WL 1663406, at *6 

(E.D. Mo. Apr. 25, 2014). The rationale for treating these 

TCPA exceptions as affirmative defenses applies as well to 

the FDCPA: To the extent a caller seeks to avail itself of an 

exemption to a general ban on a certain category of calls, the

caller is in the best position to generate and maintain records 

of those communications. 

5. Other Fairness and Policy 

Considerations

The soundness of placing the burden on the debt 

collector is even more compelling when considered in the 

context of Congress’s concern, expressly stated in 15 U.S.C. 

§ 1692(a), with the “invasions of individual privacy” of 

consumers. See Nat’l Commc’ns Ass’n, 238 F.3d at 131 

(“[T]he policies underlying the statute at issue are 

appropriately considered by courts when allocating the 

burden of proof.”); Ingraham, 808 F.2d at 1079 (holding that 
23

policy considerations are an appropriate factor in determining 

burdens of proof). 

While Mr. Heim may not have understood the precise 

details of his conversations with Green Tree, he clearly 

understood the subject matter to be private and sensitive—the 

very type of interaction the FDCPA is intended to limit. See, 

e.g., Tr. of Robert Heim, ECF No. 25-3, 9:14-17 (“If they 

were [calling] from Green Tree or whatever, [they would] ask 

if I would get Patty next door, I -- I wouldn’t go. I wouldn’t 

bother her with something like that. It’s her own business.”); 

id. at 13:6-9 (“I [kept] telling them, don’t call this house again 

for a message to go next door. I said, I have my own 

problems and she has hers.”). Saddling consumers with the 

burden to prove the absence of the debt collector’s proper 

purpose or reasonable belief, however, would mean that 

consumers like Evankavitch would endure the embarrassment 

of such calls to neighbors and other third parties with no 

means of proving a FDCPA violation unless those third 

parties took copious notes or recalled the conversations in 

detail or the debt collector offered up testimony or 

documentary proof of its own violation in discovery. It 

would also run contrary to the tenet that “all else . . . being 

equal, courts should avoid requiring a party to shoulder the 

more difficult task of proving a negative.” Nat’l Commc’ns 

Ass’n, 238 F.3d at 131; see also Lupyan, 761 F.3d at 322 

(“The law has long recognized that such an evidentiary feat is 

next to impossible.”). 

In sum, allocating the burden to the consumer would 

be inconsistent with the Act’s remedial purpose and our duty 

to construe it broadly, see Lesher, 650 F.3d at 997, and we 
24

therefore will place the burden where it belongs: on the debt 

collector.13

IV. Conclusion

We started our analysis with the default rule that a 

plaintiff bears the burden of proving her claim, but we end 

 

13 Green Tree makes additional arguments, including 

(1) because Congress crafted two explicit affirmative 

defenses in the Act, we should not read other, implicit 

defenses into it; and (2) our holding would create a burdenshifting scheme too complex for a jury to apply. Neither is

persuasive. First, “the canon that expressing one item of a 

commonly associated group or series excludes another left 

unmentioned is only a guide, whose fallibility can be shown 

by contrary indications that adopting a particular rule or 

statute was probably not meant to signal any exclusion of its 

common relatives.” United States v. Vonn, 535 U.S. 55, 65 

(2002). That is, we will not assume that Congress’s explicit

apportionment of burden on a defendant in certain 

circumstances implies rejection of the apportionment of 

burden in other circumstances, unless we discern an 

indication that Congress considered and meant to exclude the 

latter. See Marx v. Gen. Revenue Corp., 133 S. Ct. 1166, 

1175 (2013). We discern no such intent in the provisions of 

the FDCPA at issue. Second, juries are more than capable of 

evaluating basic justifications and affirmative defenses. See, 

e.g., Dixon, 548 U.S. at 17 (affirming conviction where a jury 

charge stated the defendant had to prove affirmative defense 

of duress ); United States v. Dodd, 225 F.3d 340, 343 (3d Cir. 

2000) (affirming conviction where a jury charge “placed the 

burden of persuasion on the affirmative defense of 

justification on the defendant”).
25

with the canon that, absent compelling reasons to the 

contrary, a party seeking shelter in an exception to a statute 

has the burden of proving it. We find no such compelling 

reasons in this case. Accordingly, we conclude that the 

District Court’s jury instructions and in limine ruling properly 

placed the burden of proof on Green Tree, and we will affirm.