Court Opinion

ID: 9558713
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:15:54.968885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:33.145140
License: Public Domain

EVANS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority acknowledges that the Andrews/Chevy Chase mortgage loan agreement was “complex, with a potential trap for the unwary.” With that statement, I certainly agree. The loan’s seductive Siren call of a 1.95 percent interest rate with a five-year fixed monthly payment of $701.21 — the real implications of which were not fully explained as required by the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) — was a booby trap waiting to explode. And explode it did. So the Andrews filed this suit on behalf of themselves and others who answered the Siren call. The district court certified the case as a class action seeking rescission, but its order was stayed pending the outcome of this interlocutory appeal. Today, the majority holds that the case may not continue against the mortgagee bank as a class action for rescission. With that conclusion, I cannot agree.
At this point in time, our case presents two questions: (1) What did Congress intend?; and (2) if its intent cannot be ascertained with certainty, who should pay the price of an ambiguous statute? As I see it, the answers to both questions favor affirming the district court’s decision.
Assuming it can be fairly identified, congressional intent is the touchstone. As the majority recognizes, we must first start with the statutory language itself. If the statute is unambiguous, it controls, and a court has no business substituting its view of good policy for that of Congress. Indeed, unambiguous language must be given effect unless it produces results that are “absurd.” See Evans ex rel. Evans v. Lederle Laboratories, 167 F.3d 1106, 1111 (7th Cir.1999); United States v. Thomas, 77 F.3d 989, 992 (7th Cir.1996). The majority found the language of 15 U.S.C. § 1635 ambiguous, and so it looked to evidence beyond the statutory text to determine congressional intent. That is not necessary. TILA does distinguish between claims for damages and claims for rescission, but the distinction does not support the majority’s conclusion. The fact that there is a cap on damages in class actions may, in the abstract, suggest Congress sought to shield lenders from massive liability. But we don’t address the matter in the abstract. Congress wrote a statute, and if it sought to further such a policy in the rescission context, we should assume it would have said so. The majority shrugs off too lightly the Supreme Court’s command — “[i]n the absence of a direct expression by Congress of its intent to depart from the usual course of trying ‘all suits of a civil nature’ under the Rules established for that purpose, class relief is appropriate in civil actions brought in federal court.” Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 700, 99 S.Ct. 2545, 61 L.Ed.2d 176 (1979) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 1). And this result can be squared with the idea that TILA rescission is a personal remedy. Affirming the district court would not mean automatic rescission of each class member’s loan. The district court only held that “each class member may rescind if he or she wishes to do so.” Andrews v. Chevy Chase Bank, FSB, 240 F.R.D. 612, 622 (E.D.Wis.2007). What rescission would look like for each individual class member — the “unwinding” process the majority describes — may well prove too complicated to satisfy the Rule 23 dictates in a given case. But that does not mean a *579TILA rescission class action may not be maintained as a matter of law.
If we suppose that the statute is ambiguous — it may or may not authorize class actions for rescission — the majority's conclusion is still in doubt. Although the majority thinks it clear that rescission class actions are not authorized, that construction takes more than a little massaging. If the statute is unclear, the question becomes: Who should pay the price of Congress’s sloppy drafting? The majority’s decision places the burden on the victims of a TILA violation, not on the perpetrator of the violation. True, withholding the class action mechanism is not the same as precluding relief altogether, but it still stands as a procedural obstacle. If Congress intended to preclude rescission class actions, it should amend the statute and correct the error itself. When a court cleans up Congress’s mess, it only encourages poor drafting. And if the court gets it wrong — a hazard of judicial guesswork— then all suffer. Rather than forcing a statute to further a policy vision that may or may not be shared by Congress, it is better to acknowledge ambiguity and construe the statute in the way most supported by the statute’s language and in a fashion that protects the innocent, not the guilty.
For these reasons, I dissent from the majority opinion.