Daniel Bock Jr. v Pressler & Pressler
Daniel Bock Jr. v Pressler & Pressler, Civ. No. 11-7593 (KM)(MCA), 2014 WL 2937929, (D.N.J. June 30, 2014), in which a US District Court held that a Law Firm violated the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) when a lawyer of that Law Firm signed the Complaint, which Law Firm then filed in Court, to commence a lawsuit against the consumer who owed the debt to plaintiff company, seeking to collect the debt from consumer, only spent a few seconds reviewing and signing the Complaint, before that Complaint was filed in Court. Four second review did not comply with FDCPA requirement that there must be “substantial attorney review” of a lawsuit Complaint, before it is filed, to comply with FDCPA’s "meaningful involvement" rule, which requires that an attorney must meaningfully review the claim, before the law firm files collection lawsuit against the consumer.
Following is the analysis of this case that appeared in Credit and Collection News e-newsletter of 08/07/14: The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey recently ruled in Daniel Bock Jr. v Pressler & Pressler, Civ. No. 11-7593 (KM)(MCA), 2014 WL 2937929, (D.N.J. June 30, 2014) that New Jersey’s largest debt collection law firm violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act when it signed, filed and served a state court complaint against a consumer in a civil suit without "substantial attorney review."
The court held that a consumer is unfairly misled and deceived under the FDCPA when an attorney who signs a complaint, thereby impliedly representing that he has meaningfully reviewed the claim, is not involved and familiar with the case against the consumer.
In Bock, a consumer filed suit against a debt collection law firm for violations under the FDCPA, alleging that the law firm made a false or misleading representation by filing a debt collection complaint against him without having an attorney perform any meaningful prior review.
The facts presented to the district court revealed that the law firm’s collection process was administered by "dedicated employees," "who are not attorneys," using specialized software that electronically transmitted information relating to collection claims.
The law firm’s attorney who signed the pleading in Bock testified at a deposition that, on average, he reviewed between 300 and 400 complaints per day, and some days as many as 1,000.
Likely most troubling to the district court was the fact that the law firm’s computer records showed that its attorney spent a total of only four seconds reviewing the electronic case file before approving the complaint against the consumer. And no one at the law firm ever reviewed the consumer’s credit card account (on which the collection claim was based) or the assignment of debt to the debt buyer the law firm represented.
Based upon substantially undisputed evidence, the district court decided against the law firm’s ruling that it violated the FDCPA and is, therefore, liable for damages to the consumer. In doing so, the court determined that the "meaningful involvement" rule that applies to collection demand letters also applies to the filing of a civil complaint.
The district court held that a signed complaint is inherently false and misleading, in violation of the FDCPA (15 U.S.C. Section 1692e), where at the time of signing, the attorney signing it has not:
- Drafted, or carefully reviewed, the complaint; and
- Conducted an inquiry, reasonable under the circumstances, sufficient to form a good faith belief that the claims and legal contentions are supported by fact and warranted by law.
Considering this criteria, the district court found that law firm violated the FDCPA because its attorney’s "rapid look-over the complaint against Bock, one of 673 complaints he reviewed that day, cannot really be considered careful review of the complaint, let alone an exercise of the professional skills of a lawyer." The court explained:
The process by which Pressler prepares complaints almost entirely involves automation and nonattorney personnel. There is nothing wrong with that; the FDCPA does not mandate drudgery or enshrine outmoded business methods. The state court complaint filed in the state action here, however, was reviewed by an attorney for approximately four seconds. The case law is sparse, and it is possible for reasonable people to disagree as to what constitutes reasonable attorney review. But whatever reasonable attorney review may be, a four-second scan is not it.
Practical Considerations: Courts are increasingly expanding the scope and application of the FDCPA. The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey has expanded the application of the FDCPA to the preparation and court filing of a civil complaint.
Collection attorneys should be aware that it is not only false and misleading, within the meaning of the FDCPA, for an attorney to send a debt collection letter without having meaningfully reviewed the case, but it is also an FDCPA violation to file a debt collection complaint without meaningful involvement for the same reason. Lesher v. Law Offices of Mitchell N. Kay, P.C., 650 F.3d 993, 1001-1003 (3rd Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 132 S.Ct. 1143 (2012); Daniel Bock Jr. v Pressler & Pressler, Civ. No. 11-7593 (KM)(MCA), 2014 WL 2937929, (D.N.J. June 30, 2014).