Court Opinion

ID: 9467568
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:51:47.962721+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:24.842426
License: Public Domain

RICHARD E. ROBINSON, Senior District Judge,
Dissenting.
Appellees- Lecia and David Andersen, as husband and wife, entered into a single consumer credit transaction with the Farmers Bank of Clatonia. In that transaction the Andersens signed a single note as co-obligors for which they were jointly and severally liable. The collateral used to secure the loan belonged to them jointly and they received a joint distribution of the loan proceeds.
There is no dispute on appeal that the transaction violated the Truth in Lending Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1601-1666. There is also no contention that the violation was anything but technical—the Andersens admittedly suffered no damage as a result of the violation. This is not a case of unsuspecting consumers being victimized by an overreaching creditor. To award each appellee statutory damages and attorney’s fees under these circumstances gives them nothing less than a windfall. More importantly, it argues persuasively that such a result was not intended by Congress.1
The question of whether a separate statutory award should be made to each obligor where a single consumer credit transaction violates the Truth in Lending Act has divided several of the Circuit Courts. See the majority opinion at p. 1348 supra. I concur with the result reached in the line of cases which hold that only one penalty, up to the statutory limit of $1,000, may be imposed on each credit transaction. See e. g. Milhollin v. Ford Motor Credit Co., 588 F.2d 753, 758 (9th Cir. 1978), rev’d on other grounds, 444 U.S. 555, 100 S.Ct. 790, 63 L.Ed.2d 22 (1980); Powers v. Sims & Levin, 542 F.2d 1216, 1219-20 (4th Cir. 1976); Anderson v. Pamlico Chemical Co., 470 F.Supp. 12, 18 (E.D.N.C.1977). Since these cases carefully analyze the issue, a detailed explication is omitted here. Instead, a few comments about the statutory construction embraced by this Court’s opinion are made in passing.
In finding that both appellees are entitled to recover, the Court relies on Section 1640(a) of the Act which makes a creditor who fails to comply with the applicable requirements “with respect to any person” *1350liable to “such person.” But 2(A)(i) of the same section focuses on the transaction rather than on the person; “in the case of an individual action twice the amount of any finance charge in connection with the transaction ”, and then adds the proviso that “the liability under this subparagraph shall not be less than $100 nor greater than $1,000.” [Emphasis added]. To nevertheless find the “any person” language controlling requires that it be read with unwarranted specificity. It is tantamount to substituting obligor for person. If Congress had intended to make the creditor liable to each obligor, it could have used that particular term. It used “person” instead which in a statutory context is often a generic term.2
I respectfully dissent.

. Multiple recoveries for a technical violation in a single transaction becomes more tenuous with each co-obligor. If this case involved a hundred obligors or even ten, a finding that each is entitled to a separate award obviously exposes the creditor to substantial liability and counsels against the extension of credit where there are multiple obligors. The incongruity of the situation is plain.

. For example, a person for purposes of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 includes municipalities and other local governments Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 690, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 2035, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), high school athletic associations Walsh v. Louisiana High School Athletic Ass’n., 616 F.2d 152, 155, cert. denied -U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 939, 66 L.Ed.2d 495 (5th Cir. 1980), state universities Gay Student Services v. Texas A & M Univ., 612 F.2d 160, 163, cert. denied 101 S.Ct. 608 and school boards Burns v. Rovaldi, 477 F.Supp. 270, 272 (D.Conn.1979).