Opinion ID: 2561867
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sambor

Text: Although factually different from the instant case, Sambor confirms this view. In Sambor, the plaintiff asserted various violations of the FDCPA, and also argued that the defendant collection agency, Omnia, violated HRS chapter 44313 by failing to register as a collection agency. 183 F.Supp.2d at 1235. Sambor had an account with Capital One Services, which was referred to Omnia for collection. Omnia called Sambor regarding her delinquent account and sent a follow-up letter indicating a balance due. Id. at 1236. After Omnia sent a return letter disputing the debt, Omnia stopped all further collection activity on her account, Id. The court found that Omnia's letter violated the FDCPA and awarded statutory damages. The court also noted that Sambor had not shown that she suffered any actual damages, discounting the expenses she incurred in determining whether Omnia's activity was illegal as well as the, postage costs incurred in sending Omnia a letter. Id. at 1241. Finding that Omnia had violated the registration requirement, the District Court stated that [t]o recover under section 480-13, however, a plaintiff must demonstrate damages caused by the violation. Id. at 1244 (citing Ai) (emphasis added). Because Sambor had not established any actual damages as a result of Omnia's violation, the court denied her HRS § 480-13 claim. Id. at 1245. Plaintiffs point out that Sambor is distinguishable from the present case because Sambor did not pay any money to the collection agent. While this is true, Plaintiffs nevertheless fail to show any damages as a result of their payment to Rawlings based on their obligations to HMSA. Just as the attempt to collect money in Sambor did not, without more, cause any damage to Sambor, likewise the actual collection, by Rawlings, of amounts Plaintiffs owed to HMSA did not cause any damage to Plaintiffs. [29] Therefore, Plaintiffs have not demonstrated that they were injured as a result of Rawlings's violation of HRS § 443B-3. [30] See also Wiginton v. Pacific Credit Corp., 2 Haw.App. 435, 444, 445, 634 P.2d 111, 118, 119 (1981) (stating that injury exists, under prior version of HRS § 480-13, if expenses were incurred because of the statutory violation and not because of a valid debt and framing the issue in that case as whether the plaintiff was wrongfully induced by the statutory violation(s) to pay money on a debt that was not owed or to incur expenses that would not otherwise have been incurred); cf. Fuller v. Pac. Med. Collections, Inc., 78 Hawai`i 213, 221, 891 P.2d 300, 308 (App.1995) (Acoba, J., dissenting in part) (Because there can be no injury to Plaintiffs by the collection agency's failure to remit all attorney's fees collected on the judgment to its own attorney, the requirement that there be such injury under HRS 480-13(b) is not satisfied.).