Opinion ID: 2650
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Thirty Day Period: End Date

Text: Jacobson's third contention is that the letter falsely states that the only way for the consumer to avoid further collections is through full payment or a dispute being received within thirty days, when in fact all the consumer need [do] is send his dispute within the thirty days. Appellant's Br. at 10 (emphasis added). HFS's letter explicitly requires either payment, or a notice of dispute, to be received in [HFS's] office within thirty days, if the recipient wants to avoid further action (emphasis added). Though Jacobson's counsel made this argument to the district court, Judge Glasser did not address it. The two courts we have found that have considered this issue have resolved it in favor of the consumer, holding that the debt collector must give the recipient notice that she has thirty days to mail the dispute notice. The Seventh Circuit reached that conclusion in Chauncey v. JDR Recovery Corp., 118 F.3d 516 (7th Cir.1997), where the collection letter stated that payment had to be received within the thirty-day period, thus requiring plaintiff to mail the payment prior to the thirtieth day to comply. Id. at 519. On that basis, that Circuit found that the letter violated the FDCPA: It is clear that Mr. Chauncey had the full thirty days to send his notification to defendant. Nothing in Section 1692g requires, and we have found no other court decision which has required, that the debt collector must receive notice of the dispute within thirty days as defendant insists. . . . If we were to hold that the validation request must be received by the thirtieth day, we would be rewriting Section 1692g, which we are not entitled to do. Id. at 519. More recently, Judge Weinstein, sitting in the same district in which this case was filed, followed Chauncey. Swift v. Maximus, Inc., No. 04-cv-216 (JBW), 2004 WL 1576618, at -4 (E.D.N.Y. July 15, 2004) ([T]he notice states that payment must be received within the thirty day limit. Even the least-sophisticated consumer would calculate that payment must be mailed in advance of a deadline in order to be received by that deadline.). In Chauncey and Swift, the debt collectors did not explicitly misstate the period for submitting a dispute notice. Their communications, however, overshadowed that period by demanding that payment be received within thirty days. The case before us is even clearer. Here, the letter states directly that any notice of dispute must be received within thirty days. Both the Chauncey court and Judge Weinstein readily assumed that § 1692g gives the consumer thirty days to mail the dispute notice. That question, however, is an open one in our Court, and must be addressed expressly, for the answer is not obvious. Read in isolation, the text of the statute is inconclusive; Section 1692g(b), which provides the substantive right to seek verification of the debt, states simply that the debt collector must cease collection [i]f the consumer notifies the debt collector in writing within the thirty-day period described in subsection (a) of this section (emphasis added). Similarly, § 1692g(a)(4) requires a statement that if the consumer notifies the debt collector in writing within the thirty-day period that the debt, or any portion thereof, is disputed, the debt collector will obtain verification of the debt (emphasis added). And one might read this language either way. The consumer, having done all in her power to submit the notice, cap be said to notify the debt collector within the thirty day period if she places the dispute notice in the mailbox before thirty days have passed. Alternatively, one could say that a consumer has not notified the debt collector until the written notice arrives at the debt collector's address. For similar reasons, § 1692g(a)(3) is ambiguous; it orders debt collectors to include a statement that unless the consumer, within thirty days after receipt of the notice, disputes the validity of the debt . . . the debt will be assumed to be valid by the debt collector (emphasis added). Looking solely to the text, we could say that a consumer disputes the validity of the debt the moment she mails a notice. But we could also conclude, instead, that a consumer does not dispute a debt within thirty days unless the collector receives the notice before thirty days expire. The Act's legislative history, moreover, sheds no direct light on the meaning of the text. See S.Rep. No. 95-382, at 4, 8 (1977), as reprinted in 1977 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1695, 1699, 1702 (If the consumer disputes the validity of the debt within 30 days, the debt collector must cease collection until he sends the consumer verification. . . . If a consumer disputes a debt within 30 days, the debt collector must stop collection until verification is sent to the consumer.). Under the circumstances, we must examine the underlying purposes of the statute to discern its meaning. We must, in the classic words of the headnote to a celebrated nineteenth-century English torts case, look to the mischief the statute was designed to address. Gorris v. Scott, (1874) 9 L.R. Exch. 125, 125. Doing so leads us to conclude that the FDCPA gives the consumer thirty days to mail the notice. Though it also protects the interests of law-abiding debt collectors, the Act is primarily a consumer protection statute, and we have consistently interpreted the statute with that congressional object in mind. See, e.g., Russell, 74 F.3d at 33-34; Clomon, 988 F.2d at 1318-20. The aim of § 1692g is to provide a period for the recipient of a collection letter to consider her options. It is also to make the rights and obligations of a potentially hapless debtor as pellucid as possible. Given these goals, we cannot adopt a construction of the Act that would not only shorten the debtor's period of reflection, but also leave that debtor uncertain as to just when  given the vagaries of the mails  she must, to be safe; send out a notice of dispute. For these reasons, we find that the better reading of § 1692g supports Jacobson's third argument. Accordingly, we agree with the Seventh Circuit and with Judge Weinstein, and hold that the recipient of a debt collection letter covered by the FDCPA validly invokes the right to have the debt verified whenever she mails a notice of dispute within thirty days of receiving a communication from the debt collector. It follows that the letter in the case before us violates the FDCPA, because it contradicts Jacobson's rights under § 1692g. By requiring the notice to be received by the debt collector within thirty days, the letter shortens the period during which the recipient may seek verification of the debt. We therefore reverse the district court's decision to grant summary judgment to IV S. [8]