A District Court judge in Illinois has granted a defendant’s motion for summary judgment in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act case after it was sued for using a local phone number to try and get in touch with the plaintiff even though the defendant did not have an office in the area code it was using to make the calls.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Wilson v. Radius Global Solutions can be accessed by clicking here.
The defendant placed nine calls to the plaintiff attempting to collect on an unpaid credit card debt, none of which she answered. The calls came from three different numbers that each bore the 312 area code, which happened to be the same area code as the plaintiff’s phone number. While the plaintiff didn’t answer any of the calls, she used those numbers to call the defendant back five times, hanging up each time after hearing a recording identifying the defendant.
The plaintiff filed suit, alleging that the defendant’s use of a local phone number violated Sections 1692d(6) and 1692e of the FDCPA.
Judge Andrea R. Wood of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois did the industry a small favor in her ruling. Like many judges ruling on FDCPA cases, Judge Wood undertook a review of whether the plaintiff had standing to sue or not, and after a lengthy discussion, ultimately ruled that the plaintiff did not suffer a concrete injury and thus did not have standing to pursue her lawsuit. But then Judge Wood went on to look at the merits of the case anyway and decided that even if the plaintiff had standing to sue, the defendant’s motion for summary judgment would still be granted.
Ultimately, for a communication from a debt collector to be misleading, it must materially mislead the consumer into a decision as to whether or not to pay a debt, not whether or not to return or answer a phone call, Judge Wood wrote.
“A phone number associated with RGS appeared on Wilson’s Caller ID and RGS identified itself when she called that number; Wilson has not presented any evidence that RGS sought to conceal its identity,” Judge Wood ruled. “That RGS did not use its company name on outbound caller ID was not misleading. It is undisputed that if Wilson had stayed on the phone when she called back, a live RGS representative would have identified herself as such. It is also undisputed that, when Wilson called the number, a voice recording immediately identified itself as belonging to RGS. This occurred quickly enough that Wilson was aware who she had called despite spending, on average, only thirteen seconds on the phone.”
