All, As most of you know, I am involved in a lawsuit against a collection agency (I am not going to give out names or details on the board) and the process has been going on since we filed last May. The trial is set for this coming May, and I received notice today that I will need to go to my attorney's office (out of state) in January to appear for a deposition. Basically the "other side" gets to question me about the facts in the case and get my side of things. I have never been involved in a law suit before, and certainly have never had to endure questioning by attorneys about the facts in a case. I'm a little nervous about it, but my case is pretty clear cut. This collection agency routinely violates federal law, and I have them on many FDCPA violations as well as FCRA reporting violations. Anyone out there ever had a suit go this far against a CA before? I would appreciate any pointers or ideas of what to expect. The original cause for the suit was to get their entries off my credit reports, which happened almost immediately, but my attorneys feel the case is strong and they are pursuing it to the end with hope for an eventual jury award for what could be a large sum of money. I'm pretty much following their lead. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. The deposition is next month.
Your attorney will be with you to advise you, so don't worry. I'm sure he will spend time with you prior to the deposition to go over the questions he expects them to ask and give you direction. Just answer what they ask, but don't volunteer anything. If they ask you a yes or no question, then just answer yes or no. You'll do great!!!! Oh, also meant to add...do you know if your attorney has also schedule depositions at the same time with the collection agency? L
LizardKing well if you have them on multiple violations can you sue on each charge ? Just sue on different dates ? Seems fair to me.
Is it specifically spelled out in the FDCPA that punitive damages cannot be awarded? Are they barred by statute? When I sued a CA under the FDCPA, I did ask for punitive damages. Can you please elaborate on this a bit more? I hadn't seen that before and if it ever comes up again where I have to sue a CA, I'd hate to ask for something that is barred by statute...lol. Thanks! L
the trick is to sue under a related state law and tie it in with the FCRA/FDCPA, that way there are multiple avenues to pursue...
Lizardking, I didn't believe your post to be accurate upon reading it, but I did some research and you are correct that a majority of courts have limited statutory damages to $1000 per action, based on the plain language of the statute. A few of those cases are: White v. Bruck 927 F.Supp. 1168 W.D.Wis.,1996 Barber v. National Revenue Corp. 932 F.Supp. 1153 W.D.Wis.,1996. Dewey v. Associated Collectors, Inc. 927 F.Supp. 1172 W.D.Wis.,1996. This court went the other way, but the case has never been followed: Rabideau v. Management Adjustment Bureau 805 F.Supp. 1086 W.D.N.Y.,1992. :
What I'm not getting is that statutory damages are different from punitive damages. Doing a direct search, I also found that while most plaintiff's ask for punitive damages, the courts don't award them because they are not specifically specified in the statutes. I don't understand this...they aren't barred in the statutes either that I can find. If you ask for actual, statutory and punitive and are successful in proving willful intent or maliciousness, why aren't punitive damages awarded? They are in FDCPA class action suits. L
I actually don't know how much we are suing them for. The information I have on the case just specifies "seeking jury award" with no specific amount noted. I agree that this seems like a lot of expense and effort on their part to keep this going on this far. It will probably cost them at least 1-2K just to do the deposition. Heck, the amount due on the collections is only about $2500 max. The SOL is also past on the debts they are trying to collect on. My attorney specializes in FCRA and FDCPA cases, so if he thinks its worth pursuing (on contingency no less) than there must be something punitive that we can go after. Like I said, I would just assume settle with a stipulation that no further collection activity or reporting be done in the future, but I'm not sure what the deal is because on contingency, it seems the attorneys don't do a whole lot of communication with me unless they need something from me.
Well those attorney fees wouldn't be enough to justify a year long case would they? One question for you guys: if I end up losing the case for some reason, does that mean that I am then the subject of the CA's backlash (reporting on my reports again, etc)? They can't validate the account, so they don't have the legal grounds to go on, but I can just picture me losing the case and then having to deal with these people because I would no longer have the threat of a lawsuit to keep them at bay.
The attorney can only collect his fee, so yes, he is working on a year long case for his fee. I don't think the attorney would work on a year long case on contingency basis if he/she didn't really think they had a real strong case. Just my opinion though.
Jdog- If they win, then I think the CA does everything that they can within the law to harm you.. At the same time, I don't think that they commit any more violations. Lol, you never know, some of these characters don't know right from wrong. Do you think that you are going to win? I would love to know the details, lol, but I understand that you are not going to divulge on the board.
