Opinion ID: 2816600
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The District Court’s Challenged Rulings

Text: 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. 5 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. 6