As reported in today’s New York Law Journal, a Federal Court Judge sitting in the Southern District of New York recently denied a request by an affiliate of Chase Bank to serve process through a party’s Facebook profile. In Fortunato v. Chase Bank USA, N.A., No. 11-cv-06608-JFK (S.D.N.Y. June 7, 2012), Chase was sued under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and state law claims arising from a credit card account plaintiff alleged was created without her authorization. Chase Bank impleaded the plaintiff’s estranged daughter, alleging she created the credit card debt using the plaintiff’s personal information. Despite several attempts, Chase…
Posts published in June 2012
While the use of form pleadings is not unusual, it becomes dicey when attorneys seek fees from their use of forms as “original work.” But when you use a fee petition that itself is a form pleading and claim it too is “original work,” you are going to draw the ire of several federal district court judges in the Third Circuit. Yesterday, one plaintiff’s firm was front and center for a lesson on the use and abuse of form pleadings, drawing an admonishment from a Federal Judge sitting in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania that “it may not continue with…
When a law firm uses its letterhead to collect debt for its client, it “cannot disclaim the fact that he or she is engaging in the practice of law when using law firm letterhead,” states a recent joint opinion by the New Jersey Committee on the Unauthorized Practice of Law and the Advisory Committee on Professional Ethics. 1 Rejects Lawyers’ Use of Greco Disclaimers The Opinion directly contradicts the Second Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Greco v. Trauner, Cohen & Thomas, LLP.2 In Greco, the court explained that: attorneys can participate in debt collection in any number of ways,…