Riffle v. Convergent Outsourcing, Inc.Riffle v. Convergent Outsourcing, Inc.
ORDER
This cause comes before the Court on consideration of Janet Riffle’s (“Plaintiff’) Mo
I. BACKGROUND
This putative class action arises out of Defendants’ alleged attempt to collect a consumer debt from Plaintiff. Aсcording to the allegations of the Complaint, Plaintiff incurred consumer debt on a credit card issued by Chase Manhattan Bank, USA, N.A. (“Chase Bank”). (Doe. No. 1 ¶ 12). Plaintiff incurred the debt primarily for personal, family or household purposes. (Id.). The last payment Plaintiff made on her account occurred more than five years ago; thus, she defaulted. (Id. ¶¶ 14-15). Sometime thereafter, LVNV acquired Plaintiffs account from Chase Bank and placed it with Convergent for collection. (Id. ¶¶ 15-16). In May 2014, Convergent sent Plaintiff a letter that stated in pertinent part:
The records of LVNV Funding LLC show that your account has a past due balance of $5,108.13. Our client has advised us that they are willing to settle your account for 20% of your total balance due ... If you are interested in taking advantage of this offer, call our office within 45 days of this letter. Your settlement amount would be $1,021.63 to clear this account in full. Even if you are unаble to take advantage of this offer, please contact our office to see what terms can be worked out on your account. We are not required to make this offer in the future.
(See id. at 12-14 (the “Exhibit A”)).
Pursuant to the cardholder agreement associated with Plaintiffs credit card, the terms of her debt were governed by Delaware state law. (Id. ¶ 13). Delaware provides for a three-year statute of limitations on credit card debt. (Id. ¶ 24). Plaintiff thеrefore alleges that her debt was time-barred, and that she was confused and misled by Defendants’ letter, which attempted to collect this time-barred debt. (Id. ¶20). Plaintiff further alleges that Defendants have a routine practice of sending consumers letters (in the form of Exhibit A) seeking to collect time-barred debts without disclosing that the statute of limitations has expired and that Defendants can no longer sue. (Id. ¶ 29).
Consequently, Plaintiff brings a putative class action against Defendants alleging that they “violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq. (“FDCPA”), by sending collection letters in the form of Exhibit A dunning consumers on time-barred debts without disclosure of that fact.” (Doc. 1 ¶ 1). Pursuant to Rules 23(a) and 23(b)(3) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Plaintiff now seeks to certify the following class:
(i) all persons with addresses in Florida (ii) to whom Defendant Convergent Outsourcing, Inc. sent, or caused to be sent, a letter in the form of Exhibit A on behalf of LVNV Funding LLC (iii) in an attempt to collect an alleged debt originally due Chase Manhattan Bank (iv) which, as shown by the nature of the alleged debt, Defendants’ records, or the records of the original creditor[ ], was primarily for personal, family, or household purposes (v) on which the last payment was made five or more years prior to the date of mailing of the letter in the form of Exhibit A (vi) during the period one year prior to the date of filing this action.
(Doc. No. 67). Defendants oppose certification of this class on grounds specified below. (Doc. No. 75).
II. LEGAL STANDARD
A district court has broad discretion in deciding whether to certify a class. Washington v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp.,
In seeking class certification, Plaintiff must first establish one “threshold requirеment not mentioned, but implicit in the Rule 23 analysis: that is, [ ] Plaintiff must demonstrate that the proposed class is adequately defined and clearly ascertainable.” Varnes v. Home Depot USA No. 3:12-cv-622-J-39JBT,
Finally, if Plaintiff establishes the prerequisites of Rule 23(a), she must then satisfy at least one of the altеrnative requirements under Rule 23(b). As noted above, Plaintiff has chosen to proceed under Rule 23(b)(3), which requires her to establish “that the questions of law or fact common to the members of the class predominate over any questions affecting only individual members, and that a class action is superior to other available methods for the fair and efficient adjudication of the controversy.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3).
III. ANALYSIS
Defendants’ objection to clаss certification primarily rest on two grounds: (1) that Plaintiff fails to satisfy the predominance prong of Rule 23(b)(3); and (2) that “Plaintiff fails to provide the Court with evidentiary proof that an ascertainable class of claimants exists.” (Doe. No. 75). Therefore, for purposes of resolving this motion, the Court will assume without deciding, that Plaintiff has meet the requirements of 23(a) — numerosity, typicality, commonality, and adequacy of representation — and focus on Defendants’ primary challenges to certification — the ascertainably of Plaintiffs proposed class and Plaintiffs satisfaction of the predominance prong under Rule 23(b).
A. Ascertainability of Plaintiff’s Proposed Class
As stated above, Plaintiff must demonstrate that her proposed class is “adequately defined and clearly ascertainable. Bussey v. Macon Cnty. Greyhound Park, Inc.,
In this putative action, Plaintiff asserts that Defendants violated the FDCPA. As such, Plaintiff will need to make a threshold showing that the debts in question arose out of transactions entered into for personal, family, or household purposes. See Oppenheim v. I.C. System, Inc.,
Rule 23 “does not set forth a mere pleading standard.” Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, — U.S.-,
Here, Plaintiff has simply intimated that the records of Defendants or the original creditor will be useful in identifying potential class members. She has neither presented evidence nor precedent that allows the Court to confirm the validity of these methods. Indeed, Defendants claim that their records do not show the reasons for which each putative class member’s debt were incurred. Moreover, Defendants have provided declarations from the representative of LVNV and the executive vice president of Convergent to support this assertion. (See Doc. 75-1 ¶ 12 (“Emmerich Decl.”); see also Doc. No. 75-2 ¶12 (“Hunter Decl.”)). Furthermore, as Defendants note — and Plaintiff does not dispute — Plaintiff has not presented any records of the original creditor to show how the nature of a putative class member’s debt mаy be identified. Furthermore, there is no evidence demonstrating that the original creditor still possesses transactional information for the proposed class or whether these records will even reveal the nature of each credit card transaction.
The Court does not take conceptual issue with Plaintiffs suggestion of using Defendants’ records or the records of the original creditor. However, the Court is unable to dеtermine if Plaintiffs proposed method is viable because she merely speculates these records are “useful for identification purposes[ ] and that identification will be administratively feasible,” without presenting any actual evidence to support those assertions.
B. Predominance Under Rule 23(b)(3)
Although the Court can deny Plaintiffs motion for class certification solely based on her failure to establish the prerequisite of ascertainability, for the parties’ benefit, the Court will address Defendants’ argument that Plaintiff has failed to establish the predominance prong under Rule 23(b)(3). (Doc. No. 75 at 10-17).
[6-8] Under the predominance prong of Rule 23(b)(3), Plaintiff must demonstrate that “the issues in the class action that are subject to generalized proof, and thus applicable to the class as a whole, ... predominate over those issues that are subject only to individualized proof.” Rutstein v. Avis Rent-A-Car Sys., Inc.,
Common issues of fact and law predominate if they have a direct impact on every class member’s effort to establish liability that is more substantial thаn the impact of individualized issues in resolving the claim or claims of each class member. If after adjudication of the classwide issues, plaintiffs must still introduce a great deal of individualized proof or argue a number of*682 individualized legal points to establish most or all of the elements of their individual claims, their claims are not suitable for class certification under Rule 23(b)(3).
Sacred Heart Health Sys., Inc. v. Humana Military Healthcare Servs., Inc.,
In this putative class action, Plaintiff brings a single cause of action against Defendants for violation of the FDCPA. (Doc. No. 1 at 8).
Defendants argue that Plaintiff has failed to establish the predominance prong of Rule 23(b)(3) because the third element involves issues that are not “subject to class-wide resolution through generalized proof.” Specifically, Defendants argue that the debts of persons meeting the proposed class definition are not necessarily time-barred, and determining whether each putative class member’s debt is time-barred will require individualized inquiry. After carefully considering the filings of both parties, the Court finds that Defendants argument has merit.
Plaintiff alleges that Defendants violated the FDCPA by sending letters in the form of Exhibit A in an attempt to collect time-barred debts without disclosing (1) that the statute of limitations had expired and (2) that Defendants could not sue to collect the debts. (Doc. No. 1 ¶ 29). Bеcause Plaintiffs FDCPA is premised entirely on Defendants’ alleged attempt to collect on time-barred debts, Defendants’ liability will depend on the status of each class member’s’ debt — that is, whether the statute of limitations had lapsed on their debt at the time Defendants sent the letter in the form of Exhibit A. See e.g., Conway v. Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC,
Plaintiff provides no evidence that the debts of persons meeting her proposed class definition are time-barred. Instead, she appears to assume that the debts of persons meeting her proposed class are barred by Delaware’s limitations period simply because her class is restricted to persons with debts “on which the last payment was made five or more years prior to the date of mailing of the letter in the form of Exhibit A.” (Doc. No. 62 at 2). However, Plaintiffs assumption is flawed because mаny factors must be considered when determining the expiration of a limitations period, one in particular being the accrual date.
These principles were more recently reaffirmed in Mercado v. HFC Collection Center., Inc., No. 3:12-cv-122-J-12JBT,
Here, Plaintiff has not provided any evidence from which the Court can determine when the statute of limitations began to accrue on each class member’s debt; and Defendants affirm that they are not in “possession, custody, or control оf the cardholder agreements that govern the financial obligations originally owed to Chase Manhattan Bank.” (See Emmerich Decl. ¶ 11; see also Hunter Decl., ¶ 11). Thus, to determine whether each class member’s debt is time-barred, the Court would first need to review the applicable cardholder agreements to determine when the limitations period began to accrue.
If each class member’s cardholder agreement contains comparable language to the agreement in Mercado and Carter
Determining whether a debt is time-barred is not always a simple task. In fact, in making such a determination, the Court will be required to consider many factors, such as the charge-off date, tolling issues, revival issues,
Plaintiff argues that the status of each putative class member’s debt is not an issue in this case, (Doc. No. 79 at 9), and maintains that she satisfies the predominance issue because “all class members, by definition, were sent a letter in the form of Exhibit A from Defendants which failed to state that the debt was time-barred, and were subjected to the same violations of the FDCPA as [Plaintiff].” (Doc. 68 at 11; Doc. 79 at 9). In support of that proposition, Plaintiff primarily relies on Drossin v. National Action Financial Services, Inc.,
Plaintiffs reliance on Drossin, Swanson, and Powers is misplaced because these cases did not arise from facts involving time-barred debts; therefore, the status of each class member’s debt obviously would not be a predominant issue. See generally, Drossin,
Here, it is clear that even if Plaintiff were able to establish, on a class-wide basis, that Defendants had a routine prаctice of sending consumers letters in the form of Exhibit A in an attempt to collect on time-barred debts, significant issues of liability would still remain because the Court would still be required to conduct individualized inquiries as to whether each class member’s debt was actually time-barred. For those reasons, the Court finds that Plaintiff has failed to establish that common issues predominate over individual issues, and her motion for class certification must be denied. See, Cooper v. S. Co.,
Based on the foregoing, it is ordered Plaintiff Janet Riffle’s Motion for Class Certification (Doc. No. 67) is DENIED.
DONE and ORDERED in Chambers, in Orlando, Florida on November 2,2015.
Notes
. For purposes of resolving this motiоn, the Court accepts the substantive allegations of the Complaint as true. See In re Carbon Dioxide Antitrust Litigation,
. While Karhu is an unpublished-and therefore non-binding-decision of the Eleventh Circuit, the Court nonetheless finds it instructive. Moreover, the Court notes that there are only three other Eleventh Circuit cases that address the ascertain-ability requirement, only one of which is binding. See generally, See Walewski v. Zenimax Media, Inc.,
. Plaintiff proposes other methods for determining class membership. (See Doc. No. 79 at 6-7). However, it was only after Dеfendants challenged the ascertainability of the proposed class that Plaintiff attempted, for the first time in her reply brief, to suggest additional methods for identifying class members; thus, Defendants have not had the opportunity to challenge those methods. Therefore, in the interests of fairness to all parties and efficient use of judicial resources, the Court will not consider the additional methods proposed in Plaintiff’s reply brief.
. In Count I of the Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants violated 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692e, 1692e(2), 1692e(5), 1692e(10), and 1692f. (Doc. No. 1 at 8).
. In Carter and Mercado the Chase Bank's cardholder agreement at issue stated in relevant part: " '[i]f [Chase Bank] considers your account to be in default, we may close your account without notice and require you to pay your unpaid balance immediately.' ” See Carter,
. See Hart v. Deshong,