What if they are Suing me and my Business
One important thing to know is whether you’re being sued by a debt buyer, a debt collector, or an original creditor. Knowing this will help you focus your strategy.
First, some definitions.
An “original creditor” is someone who claims you borrowed money from them. It could be a loan or a credit card or anything else creating debt, but the point is that they claim THEY are the ones who originally were involved in the transaction. For example, you’re being sued by American Express, and they say you signed up for and used an American Express credit card and didn’t pay them. “But I never signed up for an American Express credit card!” – That’s good, but it doesn’t matter for the purposes of this definition. Whether or not you owe the money doesn’t matter for this. If you’re being sued by someone who claims you borrowed from them, it’s an original creditor case.
A “debt buyer” is someone who bought the debt from the original creditor. This person may also be a debt collector, but the point here is they’re claiming you owed money to someone else and the debt was assigned to them. As you probably know by now, selling old debt is big business in America and throughout the world. Look for the word “assigned.” If a debt buyer is NOT a debt collector, your rights to countersue will be limited (because the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act won’t apply to them), but they will still have most of the weaknesses in establishing their case that we usually talk about.
A “debt collector” is someone who either is acting on behalf of a debt owner (rare, these days) or a debt buyer whose primary business is the collecting of debts (i.e., they buy debts and sue people without providing any real service to the people they’re suing). These people will have weaknesses in their case AND may give you a chance to countersue.
So Who Is Suing Me?
To determine this on a preliminary basis, look at the name of the case. It will be “X Company vs. You” Normally, this means that X Company is the plaintiff. Their lawyer is NOT suing you for most purposes, and the lawyer is not, by virtue of being the lawyer on the case, a party to the action. Companies can only act through lawyers (in court), and the lawyers are generally only “mouthpieces” for them. So most of the time you can forget about them as you consider your rights.
I did say “on a preliminary basis.” What I mean is that you start with the basic assumption that the person named as plaintiff IS the plaintiff, but it turns out this isn’t always true. Sometimes debt collectors (including lawyers) buy debts and bring the lawsuit in the former owner’s name. I think this violates the FDCPA, but for now you just need to know it CAN happen and does happen sometimes, and you need to know if it’s happening in your case. The only way to find out is by conducting discovery, and our model discovery therefore includes some questions about whether the debt has ever been transferred, and to whom.
Sometimes people find out they’re being sued before the plaintiff gets around to serving them. How does this happen? And what do you do if you find that out?
People can learn about a suit before being sued – it is public knowledge, after all, so it could happen
in a lot of different ways. Mostly though, it happens in one of two ways. Sometimes debt collectors bug you for money, and you go out of your way to check court files to see if you’re named in a suit, or you find out from a neighbor who gets curious when they see someone trying to serve you. I guess these ways are actually rare, but they can happen. The other way is more common.
There are lawyers who want to represent people in these cases, and they may send you a letter telling you you’re being sued. It may be news to you that anybody is even after you, much less actually suing you. So you check the court files and find out it’s true.
What do you do?
There have been times people brought these cases to me, back when I was practicing, and wanted to take action. In that situation they had a lawyer and a counterclaim (usually), and where that’s the case, it could make sense to waive – or let go – your right to service and just enter on the case. We were sure we’d win, and we had a counterclaim, so why wait?
If you’re pro se these days, the situation is very different. You can’t be sure you’ll win however much you think the facts are on your side, because you can’t count on the courts to see it your way. No matter how clear you think it is, you just can’t count on winning. And you’re less likely to have a counterclaim because the courts have narrowed the definition of counterclaim and debt collectors have gotten a little more careful.
So for those reasons I think it makes sense to watch the court docket (without identifying yourself to the court) to see if they ever claim to have served you. Or until they actually do serve you.
You have no obligation to make it easier for them to serve you, and if they can’t get you served they will eventually have to drop the case – or get it dropped (for “failure to prosecute”). I think it makes good sense to give them that chance. But watch to make sure they don’t claim you were served. Likewise, if they “serve by publication” (which is putting an ad in a small local paper) you’ll probably need to answer, but it’s rare, and they have to get permission to do it. Still, you should watch for it.
If they don’t serve you, you might get lucky and have them drop the case. Or you will get served and have to defend.
Obviously, if that happens, we can help.
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When debt collectors file suit, they usually start with everything they think they’ll need. It generally is only the very most basic information about your case – no more than two or three old statements and a balance claiming you owe a certain amount of money. If you don’t defend, or don’t know how to defend, these things will be enough to get a judgment. They have no proof you ever owned the account or signed up for it, made any payments or failed to make any payments, or much of anything else. They don’t expect to need any of that because most people default (fail to answer) or fail to defend themselves intelligently. If they’re thinking ahead, they might use discovery a a way to find out about your job and resources or to trick you into admitting you owe them money. But most often debt collectors are not interested in conducting discovery.
Debt defendants start in a completely different place than the collectors do, obviously. If you’re being sued by a debt collector, you need to know what exactly they have and how to attack it. You need to know whether they are defined by the law as “debt collectors,” what they have regarding you and how they got it, and what they’ve done or failed to do in attempting to collect the debt. You need, in other words, to find out ALL about the debt collector’s case, your defense, and whether you have counterclaims.
They don’t want you to do that.
Debt Collectors have a new tactic.
It isn’t strictly new – they’ve been known to do it before, and it’s common enough in other kinds of litigation, but it’s happening much more often now in the “Covid era.” Or should I say, the “post-covid era?”
The courts are back up and running, in a way, but nobody is excited to have in-person trials. So the debt collectors have found a safer way to get what they way – one that uses all their favorite ways to take advantage: stonewall discovery and file a motion for summary judgment before you can get what you need to defend. Let the courts take the shortcut if they will – and they often do.
I’m talking about motions for summary judgment, but with a twist. The new plan is to file the motion early – before you have a chance to conduct or complete discovery. With a little luck they’ll scare you into giving up, but even if you don’t you have a tough job in courts which all too often are not equipped to listen to complicated legal arguments about complex issues.
What they’re doing is serving the lawsuit, waiting just a bit, and then filing the motion for summary judgment. If you’ve dragged your feet on starting discovery – or even on pushing it towards a motion to compel – you’re presented an extremely difficult challenge: how to get discovery you need to defend yourself is a small amount of time.
And how to bring a motion to compel and respond to a motion for summary judgment at the same time. That’s hard to do under the best of circumstances, but now you won’t even have enough time to do it all unless you can counter the tactic.
Start Quickly! Don’t waste time.
The single most important thing you can do to protect yourself from this trick is, as always, to start serving discovery on the other side immediately. You may be able to avoid this trap altogether if you can jump right onto it. A few days could make the difference.
But what if it’s too late to start discovery “immediately?”
If it’s too late to start immediately, start NOW.
That isn’t a word game. If you haven’t started discovery and they file a motion for summary judgment, you must figure out and start discovery now. You’re going to have to show the court what you need in order to defend the motion for summary judgment and why you need it. And you will also need to show that you’ve taken steps to get it.
After you serve discovery on the other side, you will probably need to ask the court to hold (that’s “stay” in legalese) the motion for summary judgment while you conduct the discovery you need. You aren’t asking the court to delay its decision: you’re asking it to put the entire motion on hold until you’ve had a fair amount of time to do what you need. The complication is that, since they’ll be claiming all the facts are uncontested, you have to show how your discovery would help establish factual issues that would prevent the court from reaching a judgment. In legalese, you have to show the court how answers to your discovery might show the existence of “genuine issues of material fact.”
And to do that you must painstakingly link the possible answers to what you’re asking for in discovery to the claims they make.
The rule on summary judgments does contemplate that this could happen, and there is a rule that tells you what to do if you need more time to conduct discovery. In the federal courts, you have to make an affidavit that says certain specific things. In state courts, the rules can vary and may not require an affidavit – but they will require some statement of what you’ve done, what you’re looking for, and why it matters. You have to find the rule for your jurisdiction and follow it carefully.
It’s much easier to describe than to do, believe me, and of course the debt collectors know that. It isn’t easy at all for you to figure out how it works, file your motions, make the arguments you need to make and persuade the court to do something that all too many judges don’t want to do: take your case seriously.
The debt collectors rely on you, or the court, to get careless – and you know that often happens. The debt collectors do it to people representing themselves, and the judges sometimes turn a blind eye to real issues of fairness.Defending yourself from this trick frankly can be overwhelming.
We have a new product that can help you with this issue if you’re facing it. It’s a workbook that addresses the necessary topics one by one in the order and way you will need to do it. It will show you how to analyze the motion for summary judgment, compare it to your discovery requests, and show how the answers might affect the outcome of the motion for summary judgment. It shows you how to do your motion to compel – and how to do the motion to stay the summary judgment.
Under the best of circumstances, it still won’t be easy, but the workbook should help you get a grip on the issues and process and give you the chance you need.
The workbook comes free with our 20-20 memberships, and that’s the only way you can get it for now because it’s still a work in progress and because I want to emphasize that the membership all but a very few people should be getting is the 20-20.
The product we’re discussing is intended for a specific situation, where you have discovery outstanding and they file a motion for summary judgment. But if you’re not in the situation I discuss here, our materials can help you avoid it by streamlining your discovery process. In fact we can help you from the beginning to the end of your case
If you’re being sued for debt you have enough problems. Dealing with slick collector tactics shouldn’t be one – but it is.
We can help. Our 20-20 memberships should help you all the way. If you are already a member other than 20-20, contact me for information on a discount code that will enable you to convert your membership. You should have the 20-20 – it’s our best deal by far for most people.
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Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), a debt collector is required to provide written notice of your right to dispute a debt within five days of its first attempt to collect the debt. See 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1692g(a). The law states that “a communication in the form of a formal pleading in a civil action shall not be treated as an initial communication under this section.” 15 US.C. Sec 1692g(d). The question we address here is whether the system Minnesota and the Dakotas use, which provides for service of a document that is not yet a civil action, is excluded from the definition of “initial communication.” In plain English, if a document may become part of a lawsuit, is serving it upon a debtor an initial communication under the FDCPA requiring the disclosures of Sec. 1692g(a). We argue that it is.
That would make most lawsuits, as they are currently being served in Minnesota and the Dakotas, a violation of the FDCPA.
Minnesota and the Dakotas have a system of lawsuit initiation that is different than that of all other states, called “pocket service.” Under this procedure, plaintiffs are permitted to create what look like lawsuits and petitions and serve them on defendants without ever having filed suit. According to Minnesota law, this “commences” the action. MN Rule of Civil Procedure 3.1. Then, if the defendant fails to answer in time, the plaintiff can file suit and seek a default judgment. If the defendant does answer, however, the would-be plaintiff is free to leave the suit unfiled. It is “deemed” dismissed with prejudice if not filed within a year, MN R. Civ.P. 5.4, but “deemed” means, as is obvious, that it is NOT, in fact, dismissed – because it was never filed. Given that roughly 85% of debt cases are not answered but are in fact defaulted, while in almost all of the cases in which people do intelligently defend themselves the defendants win, pocket service is patently unjust in debt collection cases.
But our question here is, must the petition in a state allowing pocket protection include the right to dispute the debt? Or to put it slightly differently, is service of a petition and summons in a case which has not been filed constitute an “initial communication” for purposes of the FDCPA’s disclosure requirements? Our position is that it does, and that a debt collector whose first contact with a debtor is pocket service must include within that written document a notice of right to dispute.
They never do at present.
Further, even if they did include notice of the right to dispute, the pendency of the lawsuit would probably “overshadow” the right to dispute and be another violation of the FDCPA.
Here is the operative language of 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1692g:
(a) Notice of debt; contents Within five days after the initial communication with a consumer in connection with the collection of any debt, a debt collector shall, unless the following information is contained in the initial communication… send the consumer a written notice containing —
(1) the amount of the debt;
(2) the name of the creditor to whom the debt is owed;
(3) a statement that unless the consumer, within thirty days after receipt of the notice, disputes the validity of the debt, or any portion thereof, the debt will be assumed to be valid by the debt collector;
(4) a statement that if the consumer notifies the debt collector in writing within the thirty-day period that the debt or any portion thereof, is disputed, the debt collector will obtain verification of the debt or a copy of a judgment against the consumer and a copy of such verification or judgment will be mailed to the consumer by the debt collector; and
(5) a statement that, upon the consumer’s written request within the thirty-day period, the debt collector will provide the consumer with the name and address of the original creditor, if different from the current creditor.
Under the statute, pleadings of an “action” are not initial communications for purposes of the statute. Here is that provision at 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1692g (d):
(d) Legal pleadings
A communication in the form of a formal pleading in a civil action shall not be treated as an initial communication for purposes of subsection (a).
At first blush, Sec. 1692g(d) would seem to make a summons not an initial communication, but note that it says formal pleading “in a civil action.” The FDCPA has a section of definitions at 15 U.S.C. 1692a. It includes no definition of “civil action,” probably because the term has a widely accepted definition that it is a lawsuit that has been filed in court. With pocket service, no suit has been filed, and no suit need ever be filed. It is clearly not a pleading in a civil action. At most, it’s a pleading in what may become one.
Under Minnesota law, the action is supposedly “commenced” by service (Rule 3.1), but 15 U.S.C. Sec. 1692g(d) is federal law subject to federal interpretation – it is not governed by Minnesota’s vague use of the word “commenced.” At the time service is made, no court has knowledge of or jurisdiction over the matter – there has been no judicial involvement at all – and there may never be. Such a document cannot reasonably be construed as an actually existing lawsuit.
In addition to the plain language of the statute referring to a “civil action” and not a “potential civil action,” courts should require the FDCPA warnings in pocket service because the FDCPA is a “remedial” statute that should be read broadly and it is necessary to protect the interests the FDCPA requirements were designed to protect.
The purpose of the dispute provision of the FDCPA is to prevent debt collectors from pursuing people who do not owe the money. Congress had found that many such suits resulted in default judgments that were unjust. That risk, and that result, are plainly present in the pocket service jurisdictions. Moreover, as I understand the law, a debt collector can continue to communicate – completely free of the FDCPA – for up to a year under the most coercive conditions imaginable, before needing to file suit and submit to a court’s oversight.
The justification often given for exempting pleadings in a suit from the protections of the FDCPA is that once suit is filed, a court has oversight of the matter and can prevent overreaching and unjust behaviors. If pocket service is permitted without the notices required by the FDCPA, then the protections are withdrawn without that judicial oversight. Indeed, that state of affairs would enable the very thing the FDCPA was designed to prevent for the very reason that it allows debt collectors to seek default judgments without costs or judicial oversight, but to drop the case in the event a defense is offered, also without cost. So frivolous and unjust suits are encouraged, and debt collectors – notorious for their dishonesty and overreaching – would be permitted to set up a “heads I win, tails you lose” scenario fundamentally at odds with the purpose of the FDCPA.
If the defendant appears and defends, then the quasi lawsuit can continue without judicial oversight for up to a year (or even beyond) without a court even becoming aware of it. Such a situation is ripe for abuse, and there can be no doubt that is being abused on a routine basis.
The fact that Minnesota and the Dakotas would allow such a process for lawsuits other than debt collection may reflect badly on them but has no effect on the FDCPA. Under the Supremacy clause of the constitution, Federal law governs where there is any conflict with state law. The FDCPA makes pocket service without the notices required by the FDCPA illegal.
(More extensive notes coming soon)
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