The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently held that a trial court abused its discretion in denying attorney’s fees to a prevailing plaintiff despite the plaintiff’s failure to recover an award which exceeded the pre-trial settlement offers. A copy of the opinion…
Following the ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States in Bank of America Corp. v. City of Miami, 137 S. Ct. 1296 (2017), one of the primary and developing issues in FHA disparate impact litigation is proximate cause. The issue of whether an alleged violation…
In a follow up to an advisory jury’s verdict, finding that a law firm’s pre-suit collection letters contained “false, deceptive, or misleading representations or means in connection with the collection of a debt” while rejecting a claim that the firm’s attorneys were not meaningfully involved…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently held that a consumer plaintiff’s breach of contract claim against a defendant bank failed where the bank processed the consumer’s transactions in accordance with the terms of the agreement with the consumer, even though the…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently vacated a judgment of dismissal in consolidated class actions arising from a data breach of personal information, holding that the plaintiffs had standing to sue because fraudulent credit cards were actually opened in the victims’…
The Florida Supreme Court recently resolved a conflict among the state appellate courts. At issue in the case was whether section 702.06, Florida Statutes (2014) permitted lenders to pursue a deficiency claim as a separate action at law even though the foreclosure court had reserved…
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently held that a law firm’s effort to collect homeowner association (“HOA”) assessments through judicial foreclosure constitutes debt collection under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. In so ruling, for purposes of…
In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States held that anti-steering provisions in agreements between a credit card company and merchants wishing to accept the card do not violate federal antitrust law. A copy of the opinion in Ohio v. American Express…
On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari in Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP that presents the question “whether the FDCPA applies to non-judicial foreclosure proceedings.” The borrower in the underlying case defaulted on his home loan…
On June 28, California passed into law the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, which becomes operative on Jan. 1, 2020. As with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, the Privacy Act gives consumers greater control over the use and sharing of their personal information.…
Following the D.C. Circuit’s ruling in ACA Int’l v. FCC, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently held that an “automatic telephone dialing system” under the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act must have the present or current capacity to store or produce…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit recently reversed the dismissal of a consumer’s complaint for unauthorized use of his credit card, holding that he stated claims for relief under the federal Fair Credit Billing Act’s correction of billing errors provisions, and the…