Link: Hayes v. RECEIVABLES PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT, LLC, Case No. 17-cv-1239 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 26, 2018).
This suit, filed by Sulaiman Law Group, Ltd., alleges that employees from RPM called plaintiff numerous times looking to speak with and collect a debt from someone named “Lesha Wayne.” The plaintiff told RPM numerous times they had the wrong number and told them to stop calling. They didn’t. Plaintiff filed suit under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”), 15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq. (Count I); Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), 47 U.S.C. § 227 et seq. (Count II); and the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act (“ICFA”), 815 ILCS 505/1 et seq. (Count III). Defendant filed a motion to dismiss, which the court, judge Robert M. Dow, granted in part and dismissed in part.
The court found Plaintiff did not sufficiently allege facts to show that he qualifies as a consumer under § 1692a(3) of the FDCPA, and dismissed his claim under Section 1692b(3) which requires that:
Any debt collector communicating with any person other than the consumer for the purpose of acquiring information about the consumer shall * * * not communicate with any such person more than once unless requested to do so by such person or unless the debt collector reasonably believes that the earlier response of such person is erroneous or incomplete and that such person now has correct or complete location information.
The court also dismissed his claim under section 1692c(a)(1) which provides:
Without the prior consent of the consumer given directly to the debt collector or the express permission of a court of competent jurisdiction, a debt collector may not communicate with a consumer in connection with the collection of any debt (1) at any unusual time or place or a time or place known or which should be known to be inconvenient to the consumer.
The court dismissed his claim under 1692e finding that Plaintiff didnot allege that he believed he owed the debt, or that Defendant or its agents ever said anything to him that even implicitly suggested he owed the debt. Instead, Plaintiff argued the calls were an attempt to mislead him into paying the debt.
The court also dismissed his f claim:
A Plaintiff who uses the same factual allegations underlying another § 1692 claim for his § 1692f claim, however, fails to state an independent basis on which relief can be granted.
The court did allow the section 1692d(5) claim to stand:
While Defendant asserts these allegations are not enough to state claim, the court in Wright v. Enhanced Recovery Company denied a motion for summary judgment where the parties agreed that the defendant had only been called 21 times but disagreed at what point and how many times the plaintiff had asked for the calls to stop. 227 F. Supp. 3d at 1214-15. In light of Wright, and the fact that Plaintiff alleges he demanded the calls to stop on numerous occasions, Plaintiff has alleged facts to show a plausible violation of the FDCPA with regard to § 1692d(5).
The TCPA claim survived despite Defendant’s argument regarding whether plaintiff alleged they used an autodialer:
Here, Plaintiff alleges both that he has experienced the distinctive “click and pause” after answering calls from Defendant [1, ¶ 18], and that on other occasions he experienced “dead air” and received no response whatsoever when he answered Defendant’s calls, [1, ¶ 19]. Given these experiences, Plaintiff infers that Defendant used an ATDS to make these calls. [1, ¶ 47.] Considering the precedent above, the Court agrees that Plaintiff has pled sufficient facts to support the reasonable inference that Defendant used a ATDS to place the relevant calls.
The Court also dismissed the ICFA claim:
As explained above, Plaintiff has not pled facts sufficient to show that Defendant engaged in a deceptive act or practice under 15 U.S.C. § 1692e. Thus, he has not pled facts to support his claim under the ICFA. While Defendant’s calls may have been annoying, and possibly abusive, nothing in Plaintiff’s complaint suggests that Defendant sought to deceive Plaintiff.