Category Archives: U.S. Supreme Court

SCOTUS takes FCRA class action case

The issue as framed by the petitioner, TransUnion, is whether "either Article III or Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 permits a damages class action when the vast majority of the class suffered no actual injury, let alone an injury anything like what the class representative suffered." More at SCOTUSblog.

NBC News Story About How Potential SCOTUS Nominee Brett Kavanaugh “could reverse a century of financial regulation”

by Jeff Sovern Here.  Kavanaugh, of course, took the position in PHH that the CFPB is unconstitutional as currently structured.  Whether other potential nominees would have felt differently if they had decided PHH is unknown.

Can the California Anti-Arbitration Bill Survive FAA Preemption?

by Jeff Sovern Reuters reports that the bill has passed an Assembly committee, and is expected to pass the Assembly in August (the state Senate has already passed it).  Here's the part I don't understand: if California enacts the law, how can it avoid being preempted under the Federal Arbitration Act, as SCOTUS has interpreted […]

A Few More Thoughts On Henson v. Santander

by Jeff Sovern As we reported a couple weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled in Henson v. Santander that debt buyers are not automatically debt collectors under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.   However, debt buyers which have debt collection as the principal purpose of their business should still qualify as debt collectors under the statute (the […]

SCOTUS Personal Jurisdiction Case Likely to Limit Nationwide Mass/Class Actions in State Courts

by Jeff Sovern Yesterday, SCOTUS decided the Bristol-Meyers case, limiting the power of state courts to exercise specific personal jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants in cases brought by out-of-state plaintiffs.  State courts can still hear cases, including nationwide class actions, through their general jurisdiction over defendants, as long as the defendant is essentially at home in […]

David Dayen’s Take on Henson v. Santander

Here in The American Prospect.  Excerpt: [The case] gave some of the worst bottom-feeders in the economy a free pass to break the law. * * * “It's almost a road map to me on how you can avoid the FDCPA,” says noted consumer bankruptcy attorney Max Gardner, who runs a boot camp for lawyers […]

SCOTUS Rules Unanimously: Debt Buyers Not Debt Collectors Under FDCPA

by Jeff Sovern The decision in Henson v. Santander is here.  A debt buyer could still qualify as a debt collector under the FDCPA if debt collection is the "principal purpose" of its business, under 1692a(6), but if collections is not the principal purpose of its business, as is true of Santander, it will not be […]

SCOTUS: Filing of Time-Barred Proof of Claim in Bankruptcy Does Not Violate FDCPA

by Jeff Sovern That's the decision in Midland Funding, LLC v. Johnson. But the decision about asserting time-barred claims seems to be limited to bankruptcy matters.  As for whether the claim was deceptive or misleading, the Court noted that the proof of claim indicated on its face that it was time-barred.  The Court also wrote: [T]o […]