Papetti v. Rawlings Financial Services, LLC, 691 F. App'x 24

Plaintiff Anthony Papetti sued Rawlings Financial Services, LLC under the FDCPA, alleging deficient validation warnings (§1692g) and misleading statements (§1692e) in a collection letter.
Rawlings sent the disputed letter on February 6, 2015; Rawlings had communicated about the debt (on Oxford letterhead) on or before January 21, 2015.
Rawlings moved for summary judgment, arguing it was not a "debt collector" because it had "obtained" the debt while it was not in default, and §1692a(6)(F)(iii) therefore excluded it from the FDCPA definition.
The District Court granted summary judgment for Rawlings, finding Rawlings obtained the debt by January 21, 2015 and the debt was not in default then.
On appeal Papetti argued Rawlings obtained the debt only on February 6, 2015 and that the debt was already in default by then.
The Second Circuit affirmed, rejecting Papetti’s timeline and holding Papetti had Article III standing to sue for the alleged FDCPA violations.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Standing: whether alleged procedural FDCPA violations constitute a concrete injury under Spokeo	Papetti argued the allegedly deficient notices caused concrete harm by impairing his statutory protections	Rawlings argued Spokeo precludes standing based on mere procedural violations without concrete harm	Court held Papetti had standing: §1692e and §1692g protect concrete interests, so alleged violations suffice (Spokeo read to allow some procedural-right injuries)
Debt-collector status: whether Rawlings "obtained" the debt while it was not in default (exclusion in §1692a(6)(F)(iii))	Papetti argued Rawlings lacked collection authority and did not obtain the debt until Feb 6, 2015, by which time debt was in default	Rawlings argued it had the right/responsibility to recover the overpayment by Jan 21, 2015, and the debt was not yet in default then	Court held Rawlings had obtained authority by Jan 21, 2015; debt was not in default until after notification, so Rawlings was not a "debt collector" under the FDCPA and summary judgment was proper

Mullins v. City of N.Y., 653 F.3d 104 (2d Cir. 2011) (standard of review for summary judgment)
Strubel v. Comenity Bank, 842 F.3d 181 (2d Cir. 2016) (procedural violations may constitute concrete injury for standing)
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540 (2016) (Article III standing requires a concrete and particularized injury)
Alibrandi v. Fin. Outsourcing Servs., Inc., 333 F.3d 82 (2d Cir. 2003) (debt not in default merely because due)
Russell v. Equifax A.R.S., 74 F.3d 30 (2d Cir. 1996) (purpose of §1692g validation notice)
Easterling v. Collecto, Inc., 692 F.3d 229 (2d Cir. 2012) (§1692e protects consumers from misleading debt-collection communications)