Court Opinion

ID: 9497604
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:55:34.068798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:18.160068
License: Public Domain

*921TERENCE T. EVANS, Circuit Judge, joined by COFFEY, MANION, and KANNE, Circuit Judges,
dissenting.
I agree that the FDCPA’s definition of “communication” could be read to encompass the filing of a summons and complaint by a lawyer. But I don’t think it should be read that way. To do so, I submit, leads to a result that is not consistent with the purpose of the FDCPA, nor with the traditional view of what lawyers must do when they take a pivotal step in their relationship with a client — instituting formal legal proceedings in a court of law.
No doubt, lawyers can be “debt collectors” when they act like them — by engaging in the kind of “unfair, harassing and deceptive debt collection practices” that the FDCPA is designed to protect against. See Avila v. Rubin, 84 F.3d 222 (7th Cir.1996) (lawyer sending out dunning letters is a “debt collector” subject to the FDCPA). But in this case, the lawyers were not sending dunning “communications” to Mr. Thomas. Instead, they were doing what lawyers traditionally do — filing a lawsuit in state court on behalf of their client. To hold that they must include in their court pleadings all the notice/validation, etc. information required by the FDCPA seems very odd indeed. And it will also be very confusing — “you have 20 days to answer the complaint” and “30 days to dispute the validity and request verification of the debt.” All of which will make even a sophisticated defendant scratch his head and say “Huh?”.
As a general rule, when statutory language is plain, there is no cause to examine other indicia of legislative intent. Indiana Port Comm’n v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 835 F.2d 1207, 1210 (7th Cir.1987). But we have long recognized that a section of a statute should not be read in isolation from the context of the statute as a whole. See NuPulse, Inc. v. Schlueter Co., 853 F.2d 545, 549 (7th Cir.1988). We also have noted that “the Supreme Court has recognized limitations on the requirement that statutory language be interpreted literally. A literal construction is inappropriate if it would lead to absurd results or would thwart the obvious purposes of the statute.” Smith v. Bowen, 815 F.2d 1152, 1154 (7th Cir.1987) (citing In re Trans Alaska Pipeline Rate Cases, 436 U.S. 631, 643, 98 S.Ct. 2053, 56 L.Ed.2d 591 (1978)).
To include the filing of a summons and complaint in the definition of a “communication” with a debtor under the FDCPA runs counter to the intent of the statute and creates inconsistency, as Judge Moody, in McKnight v. Benitez, 176 F.Supp.2d 1301 (M.D.Fla.2001), astutely observed:
The purpose of the Act, as stated in § 1692(e), is “to eliminate abusive debt collection practices by debt collectors, to ensure that those debt collectors who refrain from using abusive debt collection practices are not competitively disadvantaged, and to promote consistent state action to protect consumers against debt collection abuses.” That language indicates that Congress intended to regulate unscrupulous practices of debt collectors and level the playing field for debt collectors who do not use abusive practices. There is no indication whatsoever that Congress considered state law legal remedies to be “abusive,” nor does it appear necessary to alter the procedures for filing state lawsuits to level the playing field. After all, if state lawsuits are used in an abusive manner, protection already exists in the court where the action is brought.
Moreover, Congress did not overlook legal actions as being potentially abusive. It made a specific provision in the Act, in a section entitled “Legal Actions by Debt Collectors,” to regulate venue, the place where a lawsuit could be filed. Had it wished to alter the timing of the *922filing or create other changes in existing legal remedies to curb “abuses,” it would have been logical to do so there. Or, specific mention of legal actions could have been made within the definition of “communication.” The absence of doing so is one indication that Congress did not intend the revolutionary changes to long-standing judicial remedies which are required if a legal action is considered a “communication” within the meaning of the Act.
176 F.Supp.2d at 1305.
Recently, the Eleventh Circuit considered whether McKnight was correctly decided and concluded, unequivocally, that it was. Vega v. McKay, 351 F.3d 1334 (11th Cir.2003) (per curiam). To quote our sister circuit: “We now conclude that the holding of McKnight, that a legal action does not constitute an ‘initial communication’ within the meaning of the FDCPA, accurately states the law.” Id. at 1337. We should not be creating a circuit split on this issue.
Finally, as the majority notes, a bill is pending in Congress to amend the FDCPA to specifically exclude formal pleadings from the definition of a communication under 15 U.S.C. § 1692g, see H.R. 3066, 108th Cong. (2003). While this might well be an indication that Congress considers the FDCPA’s current definition of “communication” to include the filing of a summons and complaint, I think it’s more likely that the purpose of the proposed amendment is to make explicit what is clearly implicit. For what it’s worth, I think the proposed amendment is more easily viewed as an effort to curtail erroneous interpretations, like the one the majority makes here.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.