Opinion ID: 2769428
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Standard-Form Discovery Requests

Text: Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint alleged that CMS’s standard-form discovery instructions “confuse and mislead the unsophisticated consumer as to his or her rights in answering said discovery,” and that the requests demand “irrelevant and highly personal financial information from the consumer.” In the underlying collection suits, the named plaintiffs were represented by counsel who either prepared and filed or reviewed and filed responses to CMS’s discovery requests. Thus, in considering plaintiffs’ claims, the initial question is whether discovery requests sent to a represented debtor during the course of litigation can violate the FDCPA. In Hemmingsen, we noted, “circuit courts have struggled to define the extent to which a debt collection lawyer’s representations to the consumer’s attorney or in court filings during the course of debt collection litigation can violate §§ 1692d-f.” 674 F.3d at 818. Most reported decisions involved collection complaints, which are typically served on a consumer not yet represented by counsel and therefore can have the same ability to mislead and confuse as pre-litigation collection letters. See, e.g., Donohue v. Quick Collect, Inc., 592 F.3d 1027, 1032 (9th Cir. 2010). Beyond those cases, at least two circuits, applying Heintz v. Jenkins, have held that the FDCPA also applies to discovery requests and procedures. See McCollough v. Johnson, Rodenburg & Lauinger, LLC, 637 F.3d 939, 952 (9th Cir. 2011) (involving requests to admit “facts that were not true” served on a pro se consumer); Sayyed v. Wolpoff & Abramson, 485 F.3d 226, 235 (4th Cir. 2007) (reversing a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal).7 Consistent with our decision in Hemmingsen, we decline to adopt an inflexible rule that the FDCPA can never apply to discovery requests made directly 7 On remand the district court adopted the Seventh Circuit’s “competent lawyer” standard and granted summary judgment dismissing the FDCPA claim because the alleged errors in the debt collector’s interrogatories would have been “immediately apparent to even the least competent member of the Maryland bar.” Sayyed v. Wolpoff & Abramson, 733 F. Supp. 2d 635, 643 (D. Md. 2010). -10- to the consumer’s attorney during the course of debt collection litigation. But the standard by which such claims should be evaluated is a different question. In granting class certification on plaintiffs’ discovery request claims, the district court emphasized that FDCPA violations are assessed objectively through the eyes of an unsophisticated consumer and therefore the fact that the named plaintiffs were represented by attorneys was irrelevant to class certification. Powers, 2013 WL 3716412, at . We disagree. The unsophisticated consumer standard applies to FDCPA claims challenging debt collection letters and other communications directly to the consumer. See Peters v. Gen. Servs. Bureau., Inc., 277 F.3d 1051, 1055 (8th Cir. 2002); Duffy v. Landberg, 215 F.3d 871, 874 (8th Cir. 2000). However, we agree with other circuits that the unsophisticated consumer standard is “inappropriate for judging communications with lawyers.” Evory v. RJM Acquisitions Funding, LLC, 505 F.3d 769, 774 (7th Cir. 2007), citing Dikeman v. Nat’l Educators, Inc., 81 F.3d 949, 953-54 (10th Cir. 1996). Rather, “a representation by a debt collector that would be unlikely to deceive a competent lawyer, even if he is not a specialist in consumer debt law, should not be actionable.” Evory, 505 F.3d at 775. As the Second Circuit observed in a non-discovery context, “Where an attorney is interposed as an intermediary between a debt collector and a consumer, we assume the attorney, rather than the FDCPA, will protect the consumer from a debt collector’s fraudulent or harassing behavior.” Kropelnicki v. Siegel, 290 F.3d 118, 128 (2d Cir. 1996); see also Guerrero v. RJM Acquisitions LLC, 499 F.3d 926, 939 (9th Cir. 2007) (“Attorneys possess exactly the degree of sophistication and legal wherewithal that individual debtors do not.”). Applying the “competent lawyer” standard to discovery requests sent to a represented debtor during the course of litigation, we conclude plaintiffs’ facial invalidity claims do not meet the commonality and predominance requirements of Rules 23(a) and 23(b)(3). In the typical debt collection case, a competent lawyer served with the debt collector’s discovery requests does not need instructions as to the -11- client’s “rights in answering,” and will object to requests that are irrelevant or demand sensitive information. The competent lawyer brings a discovery dispute that cannot be resolved informally to the court, which rules on fact-intensive questions of reasonableness on an adequate record. As we observed in Hemmingsen, state court judges presiding over collection suits have ample power to sanction a debt collector and/or its lawyer for engaging in vexatious litigation tactics. “There is no need for follow-on § 1692e litigation that increases the cost of resolving bona fide debtorcreditor disputes.” 674 F.3d at 820. Cf. Simmons v. Roundup Funding, LLC, 622 F.3d 93, 96 (2d Cir. 2010) (“There is no need to protect debtors who are already under the protection of the bankruptcy court, and there is no need to supplement the remedies afforded by bankruptcy itself.”) Nowhere in the lengthy district court opinions or in plaintiffs’ brief on appeal do we find an analysis of how claims that standard-form discovery requests were irrelevant and unreasonable can be adjudicated without either knowing the factual context in which those requests were made in a particular case, or strong evidence of a standard practice that the debt collector persistently abused. Under Rule 23’s commonality and more demanding predominance requirements, we conclude that class certification of these claims was improper. See Amchem, 521 U.S. at 624. The district court’s class certification order dated July 12, 2013 is reversed. ______________________________ -12-