Source: https://www.hollandlawfirm.com/2016/07/13/can-buyers-prove-that-they-bought-your-debt/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 19:05:34+00:00

Document:
Can Buyers Prove That They Bought Your Debt? | The Holland Law Firm, P.C.
Can Buyers Prove That They Bought Your Debt?
The Colorado Court of Appeals has addressed this issue in an unpublished opinion in LVNV Funding v. Ramsdale. The Colorado Court of Appeals is an “intermediate” court, meaning that, like the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, it hears appeals from trial courts, but it is not the highest court in Colorado – that is the Colorado Supreme Court.
The debt buyer in Ramsdale, LVNV, showed that it bought a portfolio of debts from Bank of America, providing bills of sale showing the assignment. However, the only evidence showing that the defendant’s account was part of that portfolio was an affidavit produced by LVNV. The affidavit was said to be based on “business records” but LVNV failed to provide those business. The Colorado Court of Appeals found that the affidavit was not enough: the records had to be produced.
Mr. Sowell did not claim personal knowledge that Mr. Ramsdale’s account was part of the portfolio – he relied on business records which were not produced by LVNV. Mr. Ramsdale complained that this was contrary to Colorado’s rules of procedure, arguing that LVNV should have provided the records that showed his account was in the portfolio.
[t]he assignment of [Ramsdale’s] account to [LVNV] (as well as the underlying debt) is established by paragraph 5 of the Sowell Affidavit . . . the absence from the record of an attachment to the assignment specifically listing [Ramsdale’s] account is cured by the Sowell Affidavit.
We do not agree with the district court. Sowell’s averment in the affidavit was “[b]ased upon the business records” as establishing that Ramsdale’s account was part of the group transfer. Although LVNV attached assignment contracts for a group transfer of accounts — the Declaration and the Bill of Sale — and Ramsdale’s credit card statements, none of these documents identifies Ramsdale’s account as one of the accounts being assigned in the group transfer. See Struble, 172 P.3d at 955-56 (disregarding references to the substance of an insurance policy that was not attached); C.R.C.P. 56(c).
[T]he assignment contracts refer to “Schedule 1” and “Exhibit A” as other documents that identify the loans that are part of the group transfer. But neither of these referenced documents are attached to the affidavit. Thus, because LVNV referred to, but did not provide, these other documents, or any other evidence showing that Ramsdale’s account was part of the group transfer, we conclude that LVNV did not establish that no genuine issues of material fact existed as to whether it had been assigned Ramsdale’s account.
Giving LVNV the benefit of all favorable inferences about its status as an assignee that can be drawn from this evidence, we conclude that the district court properly denied Ramsdale’s motion for summary judgment.
The decision in LVNV v. Ramsdale depends on the Colorado court rule governing summary judgments C.R.C.P. 56(e) and as interpreted in Struble v. American Family Ins. Rule 56(e) requires documents referred to in an affidavit seeking summary judgment to be attached to the affidavit. Struble says that if documents are not attached, the court must ignore their substance.
In Maryland, the rules are different. In the Circuit Court, the summary judgment rule (Rule 2-501) does not require copies of documents to be filed. However, Rule 2-311(d) is a general rule that “[a] motion or a response to a motion that is based on facts not contained in the record shall be supported by affidavit and accompanied by any papers on which it is based.” (Emphasis added.) Although there are many Maryland cases about failure to provide any affidavit at all when making a motion, none directly address the issue in Ramsdale or Struble. The nearest is Sonnenberg v. Security Management. In that case one party failed to attach an important contract to its affidavit. However, the other party then quoted a portion of the contract. The Court of Appeals considered the paragraph as an “admission of a party opponent”. This implies that, unless admitted, the terms of the contract could not have been considered because of the violation of Rule 2-311(d) – same outcome as in Ramsdale and Struble.
If a bill of sale or other document transferred debts in addition to the consumer debt upon which the action is based, the documentation required by subsection (d)(3)(B) of this Rule may be in the form of a redacted document that provides the general terms of the bill of sale or other document and the document’s specific reference to the debt sued upon.
In other words, debt buyers in Maryland, as in Colorado, must include something with a specific reference to the debt sued upon, at least to use either affidavit judgment (in the District Court) or summary judgment (in the Circuit Court).
Finally, it is worth noting that the facts in LVNV v. Ramsdale are similar to those in Midland Funding v. Austinnam – a New York case in which a debt buyer and its attorneys were fined by the court for persistently failing to provide just the kind of document that was missing in Ramsdale – one showing that the debt buyer bought the defendant’s specific debt.

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