Source: http://consumerfsblog.com/author/patrick-tira/
Timestamp: 2017-08-21 06:29:29
Document Index: 612022361

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1111', '§ 1111', '§ 1692', '§ 1788', '§ 17200', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 5660', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 5660', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 5660', '§ 5660', '§ 5670', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 524', '§ 524', '§ 61', '§ 108', '§ 1024', '§ 1024', '§ 1024', '§ 1024', '§ 1024', '§ 1024', '§ 1024', '§ 1024', '§ 1024', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 1692', '§ 2924']

Patrick R. Tira - The Consumer Financial Services Blog
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By Patrick R. Tira
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently affirmed a trial court’s denial of a motion to compel arbitration against non-signatory third-party beneficiaries who did not accept the benefits of the contract.
A copy of the opinion in Jacks v. CMH Homes is available at: Link to Opinion.
In 2009, a buyer financed a mobile home purchase with a manufactured-home retail installment contract. The contract contained an arbitration provision that purportedly extended to “all co-signors and guarantors … and any occupants of the manufactured home.”
Five years later, the buyer and her family sued the home’s manufacturer and the lender. The buyer and her family alleged that defects in the home caused toxic mold, rendering the home unfit for habitation. The buyer and her family sought rescission of the manufactured home purchase.
The defendants moved to compel arbitration and argued that the buyer’s husband and their children were bound by the arbitration agreement, even though they never signed the contract. The trial court granted the defendants’ motion to compel the buyer’s claims but denied it with respect to those claims asserted by the buyer’s family.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed the trial court’s refusal to compel arbitration as to the buyer’s family.
The Tenth Circuit first noted that the nonsignatory plaintiffs were not third-party beneficiaries of the contract as a whole. Instead, they were third-party beneficiaries only to the contract’s arbitration clause.
The Tenth Circuit then rejected the defendants’ arguments that the arbitration clause applied to the buyer’s family as third-party beneficiaries. The Tenth Circuit reasoned that a “contract (here, the arbitration agreement) [cannot] be enforced against an intended third-party beneficiary who has not accepted the benefit (here, the right to compel arbitration).”
The Tenth Circuit also rejected the defendants’ arguments that the buyer’s family was bound to arbitrate their claims under the doctrine of equitable estoppel.
The defendants first advanced an “integrally-related-claim estoppel” theory. Specifically, the defendants argued that all of the plaintiffs were subject to the contract’s arbitration clause because the buyer’s claims and her family’s claims were identical, and thus, integrally related to the contract.
The Tenth Circuit rejected the defendants’ argument, holding that the “integrally-related-claim estoppel” theory (or “intertwined claims” theory) does not apply “where a signatory-defendant seeks to compel arbitration with a nonsignatory-plaintiff.”
The defendants also argued that the buyer’s family was required to arbitrate their claims based on the “direct-benefit estoppel doctrine,” which “applies when a nonsignatory knowingly exploits the agreement containing the arbitration clause.”
As you may recall, “[u]nder ‘direct benefits estoppel,’ a non-signatory plaintiff seeking the benefits of a contract is estopped from simultaneously attempting to avoid the contract’s burdens, such as the obligation to arbitrate disputes.” However, the Tenth Circuit found that the defendants waived their “direct-benefit estoppel” theory by not arguing it before the trial court.
Thus, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the trial court’s ruling.
Categories : Arbitration & ADR
9th Cir. Applies Anti-Deficiency Protections to Debtors’ Bankruptcy Estate Where Property of Estate is Sold in Non-Judicial Foreclosure
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel’s determination that a creditor’s pre-bankruptcy, non-recourse lien on two debtors’ real property is extinguished following a non-judicial foreclosure sale.
A copy of the opinion in In re: Salamon is available at: Link to Opinion.
In April 2009, two debtors purchased real property. Rather than fund the purchase price and pay off the two existing liens on the real property, the debtors executed a wrap-around mortgage in favor of the property seller. The debtors then funded the balance of the purchase price with a note secured by a deed of trust.
In March 2010, the real property seller filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, which was later converted into a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding.
In June 2012, the debtors also filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition. The trustee of the seller’s bankruptcy estate timely filed a proof of claim for the two liens secured by the real property.
In October 2012, the bankruptcy court lifted the debtor’s bankruptcy stay to allow the most senior lienholder to foreclose on the real property. The real property was sold at a foreclosure sale. The foreclosure trustee sent the surplus proceeds from the sale to the trustee. The trustee then filed an amended proof of claim for the unsecured balance of the note.
The debtors moved to disallow the amended claim on the ground that there was no longer any property in the estate on which there could be a recourse lien. The bankruptcy court agreed.
On appeal, the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel affirmed and held that the seller’s non-recourse claim could not be transformed into a recourse claim under 11 U.S.C. § 1111(b). The Bankruptcy Appellate Panel reasoned, “[a]lthough [the trustee’s] original proof of claim may have asserted a claim secured by liens on property of the estate, as recognized in the amended proof of claim [the trustee] filed, those liens were eliminated as a matter of law as a result of the foreclosure.”
As you may recall, 11 U.S.C. § 1111(b)(1)(A) provides in pertinent part:
A claim secured by a lien on property of the estate shall be allowed or disallowed under section 502 of this title the same as if the holder of such claim had recourse against the debtor on account of such claim, whether or not such holder has such recourse unless:
(i) the class of which such claim is a part elects … application of paragraph (2) of this subsection; or
On appeal to the Ninth Circuit, the trustee of the seller’s bankruptcy estate argued that the phrase “property of the estate” in Section 1111(b)(1)(A) refers to the property that existed at the time of filing the petition and that the bankruptcy court was required to fix his rights as of that date.
The Ninth Circuit rejected the trustee’s argument. The Ninth Circuit found that what must be determined as of the date of the filing of the petition is solely the amount of the claim. The Ninth Circuit reasoned that the plain language of Section 1111(b) mandates that it cannot apply if the lien does not exist.
The Court observed that under California law, the liens securing the trustee’s claim were extinguished following the judicial foreclosure sale. As a result, extending the protections of Section 1111(b) to the trustee would allow the trustee to assert a deficiency claim against the debtors following the foreclosure sale, which would afford him more rights in bankruptcy than he would otherwise have under state law.
The Ninth Circuit then noted that the purpose of section 1111(b) is to put the Chapter 11 debtor who wishes to retain collateral property in the same position that a person who purchased property subject to a mortgage lien would face in the non-bankruptcy context. The Court explained that these purposes were not at issue in the debtors’ proceeding because the debtors were not seeking to retain the collateral property.
The Court held that section 1111(b)’s requirement that a creditor hold a “claim secured by a lien on the property of the estate” means that if a creditor’s claim, for any reason, ceases to be secured by a lien on property of the estate, the creditor can no longer transform a non-recourse claim into a recourse claim.
As a result, the Ninth Circuit held that section 1111(b) had no applicability to the trustee’s claim.
Categories : FDCPA, Foreclosure
A copy of the opinion Oskoui v. J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. is available at: Link to Opinion.
A borrower defaulted on her mortgage loan, and later applied for a loan modification. The mortgage loan servicer sent her a letter offering her a “Trial Plan Agreement.” The letter specifically stated, “If you comply with all the terms of this Agreement, we’ll consider a permanent workout solution for your loan once the Trial Plan has been completed.” The Agreement required the borrower to remit three equal payments of $3,280.05. The borrower signed the Agreement and timely sent the payments.
Later, the servicer informed the borrower that she did not qualify “at this time” for a modification under either the federal Making Home Affordable Program (HAMP) or under the servicer’s in-house modification program because her “income [was] insufficient for the amount of credit [she] requested.” The letter also stated that “we may be able to offer other alternatives to help avoid the negative impact” of foreclosure.
The servicer did not provide additional reasons for its denial. However, the servicer had also denied the borrower for a modification because: 1) the unpaid principal balance on the loan was higher than the amount allowed under the HAMP Guidelines and 2) the loan failed to satisfy the servicer’s net present value (“NPV”) test. The servicer’s NPV test compared the NPV expected from a modification to the NPV of the unmodified loan. If the cash flow from a viable modification exceeds that of a non-modified loan, HAMP requires a servicer to offer a modification to a borrower. If the NPV test generates a negative result, modification is optional.
In response to the second application, the servicer sent a letter stating that it “want[ed] to help [the borrower] stay in [her] home” and confirmed receipt and review of the borrower’s “verification of income documentation.” The servicer also provided three payment coupons in the amount of $2,988.49 with payment deadlines notated and stated: “After successful completion of the Trial Period Plan, [we] will send you a Modification Agreement for your signature which will modify the Loan as necessary to reflect this new payment amount.”
Later, the servicer sent the borrower another letter informing the borrower that she was not eligible for a federal HAMP modification “because the current unpaid principal balance on [her] loan [was] higher than the program limit.” This letter also stated that the servicer was “happy” to tell the borrower that she “‘may be eligible for other modification programs’ and that [the servicer] may be able to offer ‘other alternatives’ to stave off the negative impact a possible foreclosure may have on [her] credit rating, the risk of a deficiency judgment … and the possible adverse tax effects of a foreclosure.”
The borrower was served with a foreclosure notice listing a foreclosure sale date. Prior to the sale date, the servicer sent the borrower another letter encouraging her to continue to seek a modification. The servicer told the borrower that she might “qualify for monetary incentives that will be used to pay down the principal balance of your loan if you make your modified payments on time.”
Several months later, the servicer sent the borrower a letter denying her application, stating: “We are unable to offer you a modification through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) or any [of the servicer’s] modification programs … because you did not provide us with the documents we requested.”
The borrower then filed an action for breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL), and violation of the federal Truth in Lending Act (TILA).
The servicer moved to dismiss the borrower’s complaint. The trial court dismissed the borrower’s TILA claim but denied the servicer’s motion with respect to the borrower’s remaining claims. The trial court reasoned, “If what [the borrower] alleges is true – that [the servicer’s] left hand sought payments from Plaintiff pursuant to a plan designed to give her an opportunity to modify her loan while, notwithstanding [the borrower’s] payment in accordance with that plan, [the servicer’s] right hand continued all along with foreclosure proceedings and both hands should have known from the start that [the borrower’s] loan would not be eligible for modification in any event – the Court can conceive of such allegations stating a [UCL] claim.”
Later, the servicer brought a motion for summary judgment. The trial court granted the servicer’s motion on the ground that the borrower had failed to provide the servicer with the “requested documentation to support her loan modification request.” The trial court also rejected the borrower’s breach of contract claims because the borrower had only “conclusorily” asserted that the “modification back-and-forth ripened into a contract with [the servicer]” and remarked that the borrower had not included a breach of contract claim in her first amended complaint.
The borrower appealed. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit reversed the trial court’s order granting summary judgment on the borrower’s breach of contract claim.
The Ninth Circuit held that the trial court “erred in failing to acknowledge [the borrower’s] claim for breach of contract in her pro se complaint.” The Ninth Circuit noted that the borrower “explicitly styled her complaint on its first page as one for ‘BREACH OF CONTRACT AND BREACH OF IMPLIED COVENANT OF GOOD FAITH AND FAIR DEALINGS.’” The Ninth Circuit also found that “[o]nce [the borrower] made her three payments, [the servicer] was obligated by the explicit language of its offer to send her an Agreement for her signature ‘which will modify the loan as necessary to reflect this new payment amount.’ [The Servicer] did not call it either a HAMP agreement or [an in-house] agreement, just an ‘Agreement.’ What program the Agreement was part of is irrelevant.”
The Ninth Circuit also reversed the District Court’s order granting summary judgment on the borrower’s UCL claim. The Ninth Circuit noted that the borrower was indeed ineligible for a HAMP modification, but that “instead of determining eligibility before asking for money – a logical protocol called for by HAMP as of January 28, 2010 – [the servicer] asked [the borrower] for more payments.”
The Ninth Circuit held that “[t]he facts in this record would amply support a verdict on this claim in [the borrower’s] favor on the ground that she was the victim of an unconscionable process.” The Ninth Circuit reasoned that “[w]ith its March 1, 2010 letter, [the servicer] deceptively enticed and invited [the borrower] into a process with the demonstrably false promise that a loan modification was within her reach if she were to make three monthly payments of $2,988.49 each. The next day – and for the first time – [the servicer] eliminated a HAMP modification from its menu, but neither advised [the borrower] what [its in-house modification guidelines] required nor suspended additional payments until it could determine her [in-house modification] eligibility.”
Finally, the Ninth Circuit reversed the trial court’s dismissal of the borrower’s TILA claim. The Ninth Circuit cited the Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling in Jesinoski v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 790 (2015), which held that TILA’s right to cancel may be exercised by a written notice from the borrower to the lender within three years after the consummation of the transaction, without need to also file a lawsuit within the three-year period.
The Ninth Circuit observed that the Supreme Court decided Jesinoski after the trial court had dismissed the borrower’s TILA claim. As a result, the Ninth Circuit remanded the action to the trial court “with instructions to permit [the borrower] to amend her complaint to allege a right to rescind pursuant to Jesinoski.”
Categories : Loan Modification, TILA, UDAP/UDAAP
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently held that a notice regarding overdue homeowners association (HOA) assessments contained language that overshadowed and conflicted with the homeowner’s federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act debt validation rights.
Limiting the scope of its ruling in Ho v. ReconTrust Co., NA, 840 F.3d 618, 620 (9th Cir. 2016), the Court rejected the debt collector’s argument that in sending the notice regarding overdue HOA assessments, it merely sought to perfect a security interest and was therefore subject only to the limitations under 15 U.S.C. § 1692f(6).
A copy of the opinion in Mashiri v. Epsten Grinnell & Howell is available at: Link to Opinion.
A debt collection law firm sent a notice to a homeowner on behalf of an HOA seeking to collect an overdue homeowner’s assessment fee, as well as late, administrative, and legal fees. The notice also included a warning that failure to pay the assessment fee would result in a lien against the property. The law firm subsequently recorded a lien on the homeowner’s property.
The homeowner filed a complaint, alleging that the debt collector’s notice violated the FDCPA, the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, Cal. Civ. Code § 1788 et seq. (Rosenthal Act), and the California Unfair Competition Law, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200, et seq. (UCL).
As you may recall, the FDCPA requires a debt collector to send the debtor a written notice that informs the debtor of the amount of the debt, to whom the debt is owed, her right to dispute the debt within 30 days of receipt of the letter, and her right to obtain verification of the debt. See 15 U.S.C. § 1692g.
Notice of the debtor’s right to dispute the debt and to request the name of the original creditor must not be overshadowed or inconsistent with other messages appearing in the communication, 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(b). Overshadowing or inconsistency may exist where language in the notice would “confuse a least sophisticated debtor” as to her validation rights. Terran v. Kaplan, 109 F.3d 1428, 1432 (9th Cir. 1997). In other words, “whether the initial communication violates the FDCPA depends on whether it is likely to deceive or mislead a hypothetical ‘least sophisticated debtor.'” Id. at 1431.
The district court granted the debt collector’s motion to dismiss, concluding that the notice “complied with the clarity and accuracy requirements” of the FDCPA, and therefore “did not threaten to take action that could not legally be taken” as prohibited by the FDCPA. The district court dismissed the homeowner’s state law claims as dependent on her FDCPA claims.
First, she contended that the notice demanded payment sooner than the expiration of the requisite 30-day dispute period provided under 15 U.S.C. § 1692g.
Second, she claimed that by threatening to record a lien within 35 days, irrespective of whether she disputed the debt, the law firm failed to effectively explain her right to dispute the debt.
The debt collector countered that it was only enforcing a security interest and not attempting to collect a debt, and therefore the notice needed to comply only with the FDCPA’s obligations relating to enforcement of security interests under 15 U.S.C. § 1692f(6).
The debt collector also argued that even if it were subject to the notice requirements under 15 U.S.C. § 1692g, it complied with the statutory requirements because it sent the notice to perfect the HOA’s right to record an assessment lien against the homeowner’s property under California Civil Code § 5660.
The Ninth Circuit disagreed, noting that the FDCPA defines “debt” as “any obligation or alleged obligation of a consumer to pay money arising out of a transaction in which the money, property, insurance, or services which are the subject of the transaction are primarily for personal, family, or household purposes, whether or not such obligation has been reduced to judgment.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(5).
Contrary to the debt collector’s contentions, the Ninth Circuit held that the overdue HOA assessment fee was clearly a debt under § 1692a(5), because it related to the homeowner’s household and arose from her membership in the HOA.
The Court then examined whether the debt collector was subject solely to § 1692f(6). The debt collector argued that, based on the definition of a “debt collector” under 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(6), entities engaged in the enforcement of security interests are subject only to § 1692f(6). The Ninth Circuit disagreed.
In a recent ruling, the Ninth Circuit held that where a California foreclosure trustee is engaged solely in the enforcement of a security interest and not in debt collection it is subject only to § 1692f(6) rather than the full scope of the FDCPA. Ho v. ReconTrust Co., NA, 840 F.3d 618, 620 (9th Cir. 2016). However, the Court observed that “[i]f entities that enforce security interests engage in activities that constitute debt collection, they are debt collectors.” Id.
The Ninth Circuit concluded that the debt collector sent the notice to collect payment of a debt – i.e., the amounts due to the HOA. Even though the debt collector also sought to perfect the HOA’s security interest and preserve its right to record a lien in the future, the Court held that the effort to collect payment made the debt collector subject to the full scope of the FDCPA, including § 1692g and § 1692e.
Turning to the homeowner’s argument that the notice did not provide her with the required 30 days in which to dispute the debt, the Court observed that the notice’s demand for payment within 35 days of the date of the letter was inconsistent with her right to dispute a debt within 30 days of receipt of the letter. See 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(a); Cal. Civ. Code § 5660.
The Ninth Circuit held that the least sophisticated debtor, when confronted with such a notice, would reasonably forgo her right to 30 days in which to dispute the debt and seek verification. The Court ruled that infringement of the debtor’s right to 30 days in which to dispute the debt therefore plausibly violated 15 U.S.C. § 1692g. See Terran, 109 F.3d at 1434.
The homeowner additionally argued that the least sophisticated debtor might not understand, on the basis of the notice, that upon notifying the debt collector of a dispute, all debt collection activities would “cease . . . until the debt collector obtains verification of the debt . . . and a copy of such verification . . . is mailed to the consumer by the debt collector.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(b).
In California, under the Davis-Stirling Act, a homeowners’ association may not record a lien with a county recorder’s office contemporaneously with mailing the demand letter, but instead must provide notice of the debt at least 30 days prior to recording a lien, during which time a debtor-homeowner may dispute the debt. Cal. Civ. Code § 5660.
Contrary to the debt collector’s contentions, the Ninth Circuit held that the HOA’s right to record a lien 30 days after providing notice under Cal. Civ. Code § 5660 was not absolute, but instead was dependent on whether the homeowner disputed the debt. Pursuant to the Davis-Stirling Act, if the homeowner disputed the debt and requested an informal dispute resolution proceeding, the HOA must participate in dispute resolution “prior to recording a lien.” Cal. Civ. Code § 5670.
The Court agreed that the debt collector’s threat of recording of a lien was a debt collection activity, which under the FDCPA must cease if the debtor disputes the debt and the debt collector had not yet mailed verification of the debt to the debtor. In allegedly failing to do so, the Court held that the debt collector’s threat of filing a lien would overshadow the homeowner’s right to dispute the debt, in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1692g.
The Ninth Circuit held that a least sophisticated debtor would likely (and incorrectly) believe that even if she disputed the debt and the debt collector had not yet mailed verification of the debt to her, the debt collector would record a lien on the 35th day after the date of the letter, and as a result would reasonably forgo her right to 30 days in which to dispute the debt and seek verification.
Accordingly, the Court held that the alleged infringement of the debtor’s right to 30 days in which to dispute the debt plausibly violated 15 U.S.C. § 1692g.
In sum, the Ninth Circuit concluded that the homeowner had plausibly alleged a claim under the FDCPA (15 U.S.C. § 1692g), and therefore reversed the trial court’s dismissal of that claim as well as her related claims under 15 U.S.C. 1692e(5), the Rosenthal Act, and the UCL.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit recently affirmed a bankruptcy court’s ruling that a mortgagee did not violate the discharge injunction in 11 U.S.C. § 524(a) by sending IRS 1099-A forms to borrowers after their discharge, agreeing that the IRS forms were not objectively coercive attempts to collect a debt.
A copy of the opinion in Bates v. CitiMortgage, Inc. is available at: Link to Opinion.
The borrowers obtained a mortgage loan secured by their home. They filed bankruptcy under Chapter 7 in 2008 and received a discharge of their personal liability for the loan in 2009.
The borrowers entered into a loan modification agreement post-discharge, which did not reaffirm their personal liability but allowed them to remain in the home as long as they made payments. The borrowers defaulted under the modification agreement, the mortgagee foreclosed and the borrowers moved out in October 2011.
In January 2012, each borrower received an IRS Form 1099-A by mail. One of the boxes on the forms was checked, stating that “the borrower was personally liable for the repayment of the debt.” The borrowers’ attorney sent a letter to the mortgagee demanding the revocation of the 1099-A forms due to the bankruptcy discharge, which the mortgagee refused to do.
In May 2013, the borrowers filed a motion to reopen their bankruptcy case, then sued the mortgagee for trying to collect on the discharged mortgage debt in violation of the discharge injunction provisions under 11 U.S.C. § 524(a).
In June 2013, the borrowers received a pre-recorded phone call from the mortgagee requesting proof of insurance on their former home.
Both sides moved for summary judgment, and the bankruptcy court granted the borrowers’ motion, finding that the phone call violated the discharge injunction, but also finding the borrower failed to prove any damages.
The bankruptcy court granted summary judgment in the mortgagee’s favor on the remaining claims, including the borrowers’ claim that the 1099-A forms violated the discharge injunction, reasoning that they provided “no objective basis” for borrowers to believe that the mortgagee was trying to collect the mortgage debt.
The borrowers appealed the bankruptcy court’s rulings on damages and the 1099-A forms, but the district court affirmed both. The borrowers then appealed to the First Circuit.
On appeal, the Appellate Court began by explaining that under the federal Tax Code, discharged debt can count as taxable income. 26 U.S.C. § 61(a)(12). However, debt discharged in bankruptcy on a qualified principal residence is not considered taxable income. 26 U.S.C. § 108(a)(1)(A).
Section 524(a) of the Bankruptcy Code prohibits “acts to collect, recover, or offset debts discharged in bankruptcy proceedings. … To prove a discharge injunction violation, a debtor must establish that the creditor ‘(1) has notice of the debtor’s discharge …; (2) intends the actions which constituted the violation; and (3) acts in a way that improperly coerces or harasses the debtor.’”
The First Circuit noted that the parties only disputed the third element, i.e., whether the IRS forms “were an improperly coercive or harassing attempt to collect on the discharged debt.”
The Court explained that whether conduct is coercive or harassing is determined using an objective standard. “[T]he debtor’s subjective feeling of coercion or harassment is not enough.” Under the objective standard a court considers “the facts and circumstances of each case, including factors such as the ‘immediateness of any threatened action and the context in which a statement is made.’” However, “bad acts that do not have a coercive effect on the debtor do not violate the discharge.”
The First Circuit agreed with the bankruptcy court that the IRS 1099-A forms were not an improper coercive attempt to collect the discharged debt, reasoning that (a) the forms provided “tax information” but did not demand payment or threaten any legal action; (b) the forms provided the outstanding principal balance as of the foreclosure, but did not state that the borrowers owed any money to anyone; and (c) incorrectly checking the box stating that “the borrower was personally liable for repayment of the debt” did not matter because it did not change the informational nature of the form or demand payment.
The Court rejected as inapposite the borrowers’ argument, citing In re Lumb, 401 B.R. 1 (B.A.P. 1st Cir. 2009), that the IRS forms put them “between a rock and a hard place” because they either “had to pay the discharged debt or seek tax advice.”
In Lumb, unlike the case at bar, the “creditor threatened to sue the debtor’s wife to collect if the debtor did not pay up.” Post-discharge, the creditor sued, causing the debtors to incur legal fees defending “the meritless lawsuit.” Thus, the debtor in Lumb “was in a jam: pay the discharged debt, or pay the legal fees and risk losing the lawsuit.” The First Circuit here noted “[s]o unlike in In re Lumb, where the consequence of paying to defend a bogus lawsuit was brought on by the creditor’s misdeeds, here the consequence of potentially needing tax advice was triggered by the foreclosure itself. That some consequence may have followed from the [borrowers’] receipt of the 1099-A Forms does not make that consequence coercion.”
Finally, the First Circuit rejected the borrowers’ argument that the bankruptcy court should have considered the mortgagee’s failure to correct the 1099-A forms and the May 2013 pre-recorded phone message in determining whether coercion existed, reasoning that even if the 1099-A form contained an error, “filing the 1099-A Forms did not create tax liability for the [borrowers] or any other consequences beyond those that come with foreclosure.”
However, the Court held that because “there were no consequences and no attempt to collect a debt, [the mortgagee’s] failure to retract the 1099-A Forms does not give rise to an inference of coercion.”
As to the pre-recorded call, the First Circuit reasoned that it saw no reason to find that the call made the IRS forms objectively coercive because the call was made “around a year and a half after [the borrowers] received their 1099-A Forms.” As there was no other evidence in the record of communications between the mortgagee and borrowers after the foreclosure, and the borrowers did not explain why the one phone call rendered the 1099-A forms objectively coercive, the Court refused to do so.
The First Circuit concluded by affirming the bankruptcy court’s ruling that the mortgagee did not violate the discharge injunction, explaining that while it had “no doubt that the 1099-A Forms caused the [borrowers] stress and concern,” their “subjective feeling of coercion is not enough to prove a violation of the discharge injunction, and the [borrowers] have not presented evidence that the Forms were objectively coercive.”
11th Cir. Holds Re-Scheduled Foreclosure Sale Does Not Extend RESPA Deadline for Submitting Loss Mit Application
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently held that, under the federal Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, a mortgage loan servicer had no duty to evaluate a borrowers’ loss mitigation application submitted two days before the foreclosure sale, even though the sale was continued, affirming the district court’s grant of summary judgment in the servicer’s favor.
The Court also held that the borrowers had to present evidence that they suffered actual damages or were entitled to statutory damages in support of their claim based on the servicer’s supposedly inadequate response to their “notice of error” under RESPA in order to survive summary judgment, but failed to do so.
A copy of the opinion Lage, et al. v. Ocwen Loan Servicing LLC is available at: Link to Opinion.
The loan servicer filed a foreclosure action and while the case was pending, servicing of the loan was transferred to a successor servicer. The state court entered a final judgment of foreclosure and the sale was scheduled for Jan. 29, 2014.
The borrowers faxed a loss mitigation application and accompanying financial records to the successor servicer on Jan. 8, 2014, three weeks before the foreclosure sale.
The parties communicated back and forth for two weeks and on Jan. 24, 2014, the servicer told the borrowers that it would evaluate their application once they submitted an additional paystub, which the borrowers provided on Jan. 27, 2014.
The successor servicer cancelled the foreclosure sale originally scheduled on Jan. 28, 2014 and rescheduled it for March 14, 2015. Three days later, on Jan. 31, 2014, the servicer asked for two more paystubs and thereafter, on two occasions, told the borrowers it needed more information to evaluate their application.
The foreclosure sale went forward, but the borrowers remained in occupancy for several months, during which time they sent a notice of error to the successor servicer asserting that it violated Regulation X (implementing RESPA) by not evaluating their application within 30 days as required under 12 U.S.C. § 1024.41 and by supposedly needlessly delaying and drawing out the process, then denying the application based on the delay it caused.
The successor servicer timely responded to the notice of error with a generic letter that did not specifically address the borrowers’ concerns.
The successor servicer moved for summary judgment and the district court granted the motion, finding that the servicer had no duty to evaluate the borrowers’ loss mitigation application because § 1024.41 was not in effect when the borrowers submitted their application dated Jan. 8, 2014.
Because there was no duty to evaluate, the district court concluded that there was no liability under § 1024.41 as a matter of law. The district court also concluded on the notice of error claim that while the borrowers had shown a violation, they failed to show any actual or statutory damages as required by § 1024.35(e). The borrowers appealed.
On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit first reasoned that it did not need to decide whether a servicer must comply with § 1024.41 when an application was initially submitted before § 1024.41’s effective date but became complete after the effective date because, even assuming that § 1024.41 applies to such an application, the application was untimely. “At the time the borrowers submitted their application, the foreclosure sale was scheduled to occur within 37 days.”
Next, the Eleventh Circuit rejected the borrowers’ argument that the district court erred by finding that the borrowers did not provide sufficient evidence that they suffered statutory damages on their notice of error claim because “RESPA requires proof of a pattern or practice to invoke statutory damages and the Borrowers submitted evidence of only one potential violation—[the servicer’s] failure to respond sufficiently” to the notice of error.
As to the loss mitigation claim, the Court explained that “[a]lthough Regulation X requires a servicer to evaluate a loss mitigation application within 30 days, this duty is only triggered when the borrower submits a ‘complete loss mitigation application more than 37 days before a foreclosure sale. 12 C.F.R. § 1024.41(c)(1).’”
Citing subsection 1024.41(b)(3) of Regulation X, the Eleventh Circuit further reasoned that “[t]o determine the date of the foreclosure sale, Regulation X directs us to use the date on which the foreclosure sale was scheduled when the borrower submitted her completed application….”
The Court concluded that “[b]ecause we determine timeliness based on the scheduled date of the foreclosure sale as of the date the Borrowers’ complete application was received, it is irrelevant to our timeliness analysis that [the servicer] subsequently rescheduled the foreclosure sale for a later date.”
The Eleventh Circuit rejected the borrowers’ argument that “because § 1024.41 discusses when the foreclosure sale ‘occurs,’ the relevant date for measuring timeliness is the date the foreclosure sale actually transpires” because “this interpretation is inconsistent with the final clause of paragraph (b)(3), which plainly states that we must measure the proximity between the date of the foreclosure sale and the receipt of the complete loss mitigation application ‘as of the date a complete loss mitigation application is received.’” Adopting the borrowers’ interpretation “would render this phrase in the regulation meaningless.”
Because the Court found that paragraph (b)(3) was unambiguous, it explained that it did not need to consider the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s interpretation of the regulation. The Court held that its interpretation nonetheless was consistent with the CFPB’s interpretation when it adopted the regulation. “The Bureau thus made clear that an untimely application should not become timely simply because the servicer rescheduled a foreclosure sale.”
Because the borrowers’ loss mitigation application was not timely, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to the servicer on the borrowers’ loss mitigation claim.
In addition, because the borrowers could not show any actual damages absent a duty on the part of the servicer to evaluate their complete application, the Court then turned to whether the borrowers “presented evidence of a pattern or practice of RESPA noncompliance to support an award of statutory damages” and concluded they had not done so.
Citing its ruling in Renfroe v. Nationstar Mortg., LLC, which held that two RESPA violations were insufficient, the Court reasoned that “[a]lthough ‘RESPA pattern-or-practice damages are not clearly defined by this Court’s precedent,’… we can safely say that one RESPA violation, standing alone, does not constitute a pattern or practice.”
Finally, the Court rejected the borrowers’ argument that sending a form template in response to the borrowers’ notice of error showed a pattern or practice of providing insufficient responses to notices of error sent by other borrowers, finding that “[s]imply using a template to respond to a notice of error does not violate RESPA” and the borrowers “presented no evidence from which we can infer that [the servicer] had a pattern or practice of issuing form letters that were unresponsive to borrowers’ notices of error.”
Because the borrowers could not present sufficient evidence of a pattern or practice, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the trial court did not err in entering summary judgment in the successor servicer’s favor on the notice of error claim.
Accordingly, the trial court’s judgment was affirmed in all respects in favor of the mortgage servicer.
Categories : Foreclosure, RESPA
A copy of the opinion in Hernandez v. Williams Zinman & Parham is available at: Link to Opinion.
As you may recall, section § 1692g(a) requires a “debt collector” to notify a debtor either in the “initial communication” with a consumer incident to collecting a debt or within five days thereafter, of the amount of the debt, the name of the creditor, that the consumer can dispute the debt in writing within 30 days after receiving the initial notice, that if the consumer does so, the debt collector will obtain verification of the debt and mail a copy to the debtor, and that if the debtor requests it in writing within the 30-day period, the debtor collector will provide the name and address of the original creditor, if the debt has been sold.
The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The law firm argued that it was not required to comply with § 1692g(a) because its letter was not the “initial communication” with the debtor. The district court agreed and granted summary judgment in its favor. The debtor appealed.
On appeal, the debtor argued that § 1692g(a) requires that each and every debt collector that communicates with a consumer send the “validation notice.” The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency charged with rulemaking authority under the FDCPA, and the Federal Trade Commission, which has concurrent authority to enforce the FDCPA, filed an amicus curiae brief agreeing with the debtor’s interpretation.
The Ninth Circuit began its analysis with the statutory text, explaining that under well-recognized rules of interpretation, “[i]f the operative text is ambiguous when read alongside related statutory provisions, we ‘must turn to the broader structure of the Act,’ … and to its ‘object and policy to ascertain the intent of Congress.’” If “‘the plain language of the statute, its structure and purpose’ clearly reveals” Congress’s intent, the court’s inquiry stops there. However, “if the plain meaning of the statutory text remains unclear after consulting internal indicia of congressional intent, [the court] may then turn to extrinsic indicators, such as legislative history, to help resolve the ambiguity.”
The Court found that the text of § 1692g(a) is ambiguous because “Congress did not define the term ‘initial communication’ or the word ‘initial.’” It noted, however, that “Congress did define ‘communication’ to mean ‘the conveying of information regarding a debt directly or indirectly to any person through any medium… [and] [t]his definition … is broad enough to sweep into its ambit both” the initial letter from the debt collector and the second one from the law firm.
After parsing the statutory language and still finding the text ambiguous, the Ninth Circuit turned “to the broader structure of the FDCPA to determine which initial communication triggers the validation notice requirement — the first ever sent or the first sent by any debt collector, whether first or subsequent.”
The Court concluded that interpreting the text of § 1692g(a) “in the context of the FDCPA as a whole makes clear that the validation notice requirement applies to each debt collector that tries to collect a given debt,” reasoning that its “interpretation is the only one that is consistent with the rest of the statutory text and that avoids creating substantial loopholes around both § 1692g(a)’s validation notice requirement and § 1692g(b)’s debt verification — loopholes that otherwise would undermine the very protections the statute provides.”
Having found Congress intended to require that “each debt collector send a validation notice with its initial communication is clear from the statutory text,” the Ninth Circuit reasoned that it was not necessary to consult “external sources to interpret § 1692g(a),” but even if any ambiguity remained, “the external indicia of Congress’s intent eliminate it.”
In particular, the Ninth Circuit stressed that the “Senate Report’s description of the validation notice suggests that Congress intended it to apply to each debt collector’s first communication.” The Court also highlighted the FDCPA remedial nature and that “the legislative history also shows that Congress’s sole goal in enacting § 1692g(a) was consumer protection. … Nothing in this legislative history suggests that Congress thought consumers needed less protection from successive debt collectors or less information as their debts passed from hand to hand.”
After applying “the tools of statutory construction,” the Ninth Circuit held “that the FDCPA unambiguously requires any debt collector — first or subsequent — to send a § 1692g(a) validation notice within five days of its first communication with a consumer in connection with the collection of any debt.”
The Court of Appeal of the State of California, Third Appellate District, recently held that an order denying interim attorney’s fees under California Civil Code § 2924.12, which is part of the California Homeowner Bill of Rights, is not an appealable order.
A copy of the opinion in Sese v. Wells Fargo Bank is available at: Link to Opinion.
The plaintiff borrower filed a complaint against the defendant mortgagee alleging a violation of the California Homeowner Bill of Rights (CHBOR) as the mortgagee supposedly recorded its notice of notice of sale while a loan modification was pending. The plaintiff presented evidence that indicated the defendant issued the notice of trustee’s sale before it issued any determination of the plaintiff’s eligibility of a loan modification.
As the preliminary injunction was in place, the plaintiff moved for attorney’s fees as the prevailing party. The trial court denied the request for interim attorney’s fees and the plaintiff appealed the order.
On appeal, the mortgagee argued the trial court’s order denying the borrower’s motion for interim attorney’s fees under the CHBOR was not an appealable order.
As you may recall, under California’s ‘one final judgment’ rule, a judgment that fails to dispose of all the causes of action pending between the parties is generally not appealable. A final judgment terminates the litigation between the parties on the merits of the case and leaves nothing to be done but to enforce by execution what has been determined. A recognized exception to the ‘one final judgment’ rule is that an interim order is appealable if: (1) the order is collateral to the subject matter of the litigation, (2) the order is final as to the collateral matter, and (3) the order directs the payment of money by the appellant or the performance of an act by or against the appellant.
Here, the Appellate Court noted that the plaintiff’s notice of appeal was filed before a final judgment, and that a trial on the merits might show that the preliminary injunction was improper.
The Appellate Court also found that the trial court’s order denying interim attorney’s fees is also not appealable as a collateral order. The Appellate Court noted that the trial court’s order did not direct the payment of any money, nor did it compel an act by or against the plaintiff. Instead, the Appellate Court noted, the trial court’s order merely represents a denial of attorney’s fees that is not appealable as a collateral order.
The Appellate Court rejected the plaintiff’s reliance on Moore v. Shaw (2004) 116 Cal.App.4th 182. The Court noted that, in Doe v. Luster (2006) 145 Cal.App.4th 139, the same appellate court that rendered the decision in Moore v. Shaw “considered its earlier decision in Moore and held Moore should not be construed to allow an appeal from an interim attorney fee award.” The Appellate Court noted that Moore did not address the issue of whether an order denying the request for attorney’s fees was appealable, and thus was not applicable to the case at hand.
The Court also rejected the plaintiff’s reliance on Baharian-Mehr v. Smith (2010) 189 Cal.App.4th 265. The Appellate Court noted that “Baharian–Mehr did not consider whether an attorney fee order is appealable by itself. (Ibid.) Thus, Baharian–Mehr does not undermine our conclusion that the order denying interim attorney fees in this case does not constitute an appealable order.”
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California recently held that a TCPA plaintiff alleging some 290 unwanted autodialed calls to her cell phone did not demonstrate “concrete injury” sufficient to confer Article III standing under Spokeo v. Robins.
A copy of the opinion in Romero v. Department Stores National Bank et al is available here: Link to Opinion.
The plaintiff failed to make payments to her credit card, and started to receive collection calls. The defendant creditors allegedly called the plaintiff on her cellular telephone more than 290 times using an automated telephone dialing system (ATDS) over the course of six months between July and December 2014. The plaintiff answered only three of these telephone calls.
The plaintiff alleged that “Defendant’s unlawful conduct caused Plaintiff severe and substantial emotional distress, including physical and emotional harm, including but not limited to: anxiety, stress, headaches (requiring ibuprofen, over the counter health aids), back, neck and shoulder pain, sleeping issues (requiring over the counter health aids), anger, embarrassment, humiliation, depression, frustration, shame, lack of concentration, dizziness, weight loss, nervousness and tremors, family and marital problems that required counseling, amongst other injuries and negative emotions.” She also testified in her deposition that, as a result of the collection calls, she suffered “nervousness, a lot of tension, problems with my husband, headaches, my neck, and they would go down to my back and I would lose my appetite. I lost weight.”
As you may recall, “the ‘irreducible constitutional minimum’ of standing consists of three elements. The plaintiff must have (1) suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant, and (3) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” Spokeo v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1547 (2016) (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992)).
The Court recited that “Congress cannot erase Article III’s standing requirements by statutorily granting the right to sue to a plaintiff who would not otherwise have standing.” Spokeo, 136 S.Ct. at 1547-48. “To establish injury in fact, a plaintiff must show that he or she suffered ‘an invasion of a legally protected interest’ that is ‘concrete and particularized’ and ‘actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.’” Id. at 1548 (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560).
Again citing Spokeo, the Court noted that a plaintiff does not “automatically satisf[y] the injury-in-fact requirement whenever a statute grants a person a statutory right and purports to authorize that person to sue to vindicate that right. Article III standing requires a concrete injury even in the context of a statutory violation.” Id. at 1549. A “bare procedural violation, divorced from any concrete harm,” does not satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement of Article III. Id.
The Court also noted that “a plaintiff must demonstrate standing for each claim he seeks to press.” DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 352 (2006). In other words, “standing is not dispensed in gross.” Id. (quoting Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 358 n.6 (1996)).
The Court observed that, because the TCPA provides for a separate statutory $500 damage award for each call that violates its provisions, the plaintiff must establish standing for each violation — i.e., the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact caused by each individual nonconsensual autodialed call to her cell phone.
In other words, “[t]he determination of standing to bring a TCPA claim based on a call made using an ATDS does not change whether it is the only call alleged to have violated the TCPA or 1 of 290 calls that allegedly violated the TCPA,” and “the Court must determine whether [p]laintiff has evidence of an injury in fact specific to each individual call, and not in the aggregate based on the total quantity of calls.”
The Court explained that “[i]nstead of basing a violation based on the quantity of calls, or creating a private right of action for someone who has received an excessive number of calls over time from the same offender, the TCPA treats every single call as a separate, independent violation, regardless of who made the call, the time of the call, the reason for the call, or whether the recipient was even aware the call was made or aware that it was made with an ATDS.”
However, the Court noted, “Congress’s finding that the proliferation of unwanted calls from telemarketers causes harm does not mean that the receipt of one telephone call that was dialed using an ATDS results in concrete harm. In other words, regardless of Congress’s reasons for enacting the TCPA, one singular call, viewed in isolation and without consideration of the purpose of the call, does not cause any injury that is traceable to the conduct for which the TCPA created a private right of action, namely the use of an ATDS to call a cell phone.”
Stated differently, the Court held the fact that Congress created a TCPA private right of action for each nonconsensual call made using an ATDS does not mean “that an individual who receives one call to her cell phone using an ATDS suffers a concrete harm” sufficient to confer Constitutional standing.
“Under Spokeo, if the defendant’s actions would not have caused a concrete, or de facto, injury in the absence of a statute, the existence of the statute does not automatically give a Plaintiff standing. See Spokeo, 136 S.Ct. at 1547-48 (“Congress cannot erase Article III’s standing requirements by statutorily granting the right to sue to a plaintiff who would not otherwise have standing.”) (quoting Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 820 n.3 (1997).”
In the Court’s words, “the mere dialing of a cellular telephone number using an ATDS, even if the call is not heard or answered by the recipient, does not cause an injury to the recipient. That the TCPA allows private suits for such calls does not somehow elevate this non-injury into a concrete injury sufficient to create Article III standing.”
Turning to the matter at hand, the Court noted that the plaintiff alleged that the defendants supposedly violated the TCPA some 290 times — i.e., each time they allegedly called her cell phone using an ATDS after the plaintiff claims she revoked her consent to call her cell phone.
The Court divided the alleged calls into three categories: (1) calls of which the plaintiff was not aware either because her phone did not ring or she did not hear it ring; (2) calls that the plaintiff heard ring on her phone but that she did not answer; and (3) calls that the plaintiff answered and spoke with a representative of the defendants. After examining the evidence, the Court held that the plaintiff here failed to “demonstrate that any one of [the d]efendants’ over 290 alleged violations of the TCPA, considered in isolation, actually caused her a concrete harm.”
The Court explained that, “[a]lthough a defendant violates the TCPA by dialing a cell phone with an ATDS, it is possible that the recipient’s phone was not turned on or did not ring, that the recipient did not hear the phone ring, or the recipient for whatever reason was unaware that the call occurred. … A plaintiff cannot have suffered an injury in fact as a result of a phone call she did know was made. Moreover, even for the calls Plaintiff heard ring or actually answered, Plaintiff does not offer any evidence of a concrete injury caused by the use of an ATDS, as opposed to a manually dialed call.”
Although the plaintiff asserted “lost time, aggravation, and distress,” the Court held that the plaintiff failed “to connect any of these claimed injuries in fact with any (or each) specific TCPA violation.”
The Court held that a nonconsensual call to a cell phone made using an ATDS “is merely a procedural violation,” which when “divorced from any concrete harm,” does not satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement of Article III.
Accordingly, the Court held that calls of which the plaintiff was not aware — “either because her ringer or phone were turned off, or because she did not have her phone with her when the calls occurred” — did not result in any plausible injuries in fact that could be traceable to the alleged TCPA violation. “For Plaintiff to have suffered ‘lost time, aggravation, and distress,’ she must, at the very least, have been aware of the call when it occurred.” Thus, the Court held that the plaintiff did not have standing to sue for any calls of which she was not aware.
As to calls of which the plaintiff was aware but did not answer — for example, the plaintiff asserted “that she called the number that appeared on her phone and when someone answered on behalf of Defendants, she hung up” — the Court held that the plaintiff “must demonstrate that she suffered an injury in fact solely as a result of the telephone ringing for that particular call.”
Here, the Court held that “[n]o reasonable juror could find that one unanswered telephone call could cause lost time, aggravation, distress, or any injury sufficient to establish standing. When someone owns a cell phone and leaves the ringer on, they necessarily expect the phone to ring occasionally. Viewing each call in isolation, whether the phone rings as a result of a call from a family member, a call from an employer, a manually dialed call from a creditor, or an ATDS dialed call from a creditor, any ‘lost time, aggravation, and distress,’ are the same. Thus, Defendants’ TCPA violation (namely, use of an ATDS to call Plaintiff) could not have caused Plaintiff a concrete injury with respect to any (and each) of the calls that she did not answer.”
The Court noted that just two of the plaintiff’s TCPA claims are based on calls she answered. Here, the Court held that “Plaintiff does not offer any evidence demonstrating that Defendants’ use of an ATDS to dial her number caused her greater lost time, aggravation, and distress than she would have suffered had the calls she answered been dialed manually, which would not have violated the TCPA. Therefore, Plaintiff did not suffer an injury in fact traceable to Defendants’ violation of the TCPA, and lacks standing to make a claim for any violation attributable to the calls she actually answered.”
The Court held that “the specific facts of this case reveal that any harm suffered by Plaintiff is unconnected to the alleged TCPA violations. Defendants here were creditors of Plaintiff and were attempting to collect a debt. They were calling Plaintiff’s cell phone because that was the only telephone number she provided them. Although these calls seeking to collect debts may have been stressful, aggravating, and occupied Plaintiff’s time, that injury is completely unrelated to Defendants’ use of an ATDS to dial her number.”
Importantly, the Court also held that the plaintiff “would have been no better off had Defendants dialed her telephone number manually.”
“A plaintiff who would have been no better off had the defendant refrained from the unlawful acts of which the plaintiff is complaining does not have standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge those acts in a suit in federal court.” McNamara v. City of Chicago, 138 F.3d 1219, 1221 (7th Cir. 1998).
In addition, the fact that “the use of an ATDS may have allowed Defendants to call a greater number of debtors more efficiently did not cause any harm to Plaintiff.” See Silha v. ACT, Inc., 807 F.3d 169, 174-75 (7th Cir. 2015) (“[A] plaintiff’s claim of injury in fact cannot be based solely on a defendant’s gain; it must be based on a plaintiff’s loss.”). In other words, the Court held, “Plaintiff’s alleged concrete harm was divorced from the alleged violation of the TCPA.” See Spokeo, 136 S.Ct. at 1549 (holding that “a bare procedural violation, divorced from any concrete harm, [does not] satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement of Article III”).