On November 15, 2019, the Eleventh Circuit decertified a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class in Cordoba v. DIRECTV, LLC (No. 18-12077, 2019 WL 6044305), finding that the plaintiff could not adequately identify potential class members without resorting to individualized inquiries. The plaintiff alleged that DIRECTV failed to maintain an…
On October 23, 2019, the District of Massachusetts denied class certification in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) case in Sandoe v. Boston Scientific Corp. (No. 18-11826). The court held that the plaintiff could not identify class members sufficiently to satisfy the ascertainability and predominance requirements of Fed. R. Civ….
As we previously reported, Selia Law LLC (Selia) filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court on June 28, 2019, appealing the Ninth Circuit’s ruling upholding the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) single directorship. On September 17, 2019, the CFPB filed its responding…
On July 3, 2019, in Williams v. Big Picture Loans, LLC (No. 18-1827), the Fourth Circuit ruled that a small dollar lender affiliated with the Lake Superior Chippewa Indian Tribe (Tribe) was entitled to tribal sovereign immunity from state interest rate laws as an “arm of the tribe,” dismissing a…
On May 30, 2019, the Fourth Circuit upheld a $61 million Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) judgment in Krakauer v. Dish Network, L.L.C., No. 1518. The plaintiff, Dr. Thomas Krakauer (Plaintiff), placed his name on the Do-Not-Call registry in 2003. In 2009, he received calls from Satellite Systems Network (SSN),…
On March 20, 2019, in the case of Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) does not apply to entities that conduct non-judicial foreclosure sales. In so holding, the Court zeroed in on the FDCPA’s definition of “debt collector,”…
On January 10, 2019, the CFPB issued a press release regarding two recently-released reports, which analyze the efficacy of the Ability to Repay Rule (ATR), and the RESPA Servicing Rule (Servicing Rule). The assessment reports analyze data collected since the rules were enacted in January 2013, and are designed to assess whether…
On December 13, 2018, the CFPB published a proposed rule, seeking public comment regarding a change to its policy on No-Action Letters, as well as a new feature called the “Product Sandbox,” a rule change that was initially announced on September 13, 2018. The comment period for the proposed rule…
On November 13, 2018, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in PDR Network, LLC v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic (No. 17-1705), to answer the question whether the Hobbs Act required the district court to accept the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC’s) legal interpretation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). At issue…
On October 15, 2018, in remarks to the Mortgage Banker’s Association, Acting Director Mick Mulvaney declared that the CFPB will move away from “regulation by enforcement” by clarifying standards of conduct, to provide the regulated community with a measure of certainty when engaging in business operations. Mulvaney stated that, under…
On September 14, 2018, the Community Financial Services Association of America, Ltd. and the Consumer Service Alliance of Texas (Industry Groups) moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent many of the provisions of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) payday lending rule (12 C.F.R. Part 1041) from becoming effective on…
On August 13, 2018, the California Supreme Court answered a question certified to it by the Ninth Circuit, holding that a loan with a high interest rate can be unconscionable, even if the legislature specifically declined to impose an interest rate cap on loans of that amount. See De La Torre…
On July 16, 2018, in Collins v. Mnuchin, No. 17-20364, a Fifth Circuit panel ruled that the single-director structure of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is unconstitutional. The ruling comes on the heels of the Southern District of New York’s CFPB v. RD Legal Funding LLC decision (2018 WL 3094916…
On June 21, 2018, a judge in the Southern District of New York ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) single director structure is unconstitutional. See CFPB v. RD Legal Funding LLC (2018 WL 3094916 (S.D.N.Y. June 21, 2018)). In doing so, the court adopted two dissenting opinions from…
On March 16, 2018, the D.C. Circuit issued a long-awaited ruling in ACA International v. FCC, which struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) expansive interpretation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s (TCPA’s) “automatic telephone dialing system” (ATDS) definition. As LenderLaw Watch analyzed more fully here, the D.C. Circuit focused…
On April 17, 2018, House members Sean Duffy (R-WI) and Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) co-sponsored bi-partisan legislation aimed at providing more certainty to companies subject to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) regulation. The bill, H.R. 5534, titled the “Give Useful Information to Define Effective Compliance Act” or “GUIDE Compliance Act,”…
On March 15, 2018, in Chamber of Com. of the U.S. v. U.S. Dep’t. of Labor (No. 17-10238, 5th Cir. Mar. 15, 2018), the Fifth Circuit entered an order enjoining enforcement of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) fiduciary rule (Fiduciary Rule), finding that the DOL exceeded its statutory authority in…
On February 16, 2018, the 6th Circuit, in Hagy v. Demers & Adams (882 F.3d 616 (6th Cir. Feb. 16, 2018)), found that a former borrower did not have standing to assert a claim under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) absent a showing of concrete harm. The case is one of…
On January 25, 2018, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued the final prepaid accounts rule (which we wrote about here and here) under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (Regulation E) and the Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z). The final rule, which will now become effective on April 1,…
On January 3, 2018, the Second Circuit decided Latner v. Mount Sinai Health Sys., Inc., 879 F.3d 52 (2d Cir. 2018), affirming the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York’s decision to dismiss the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) suit, and finding that the plaintiff consented to…