Credit Card Litigation Questioned

A NY Times DealBook article, Problems Riddle Moves to Collect Credit Card Debt, quotes Kings County Supreme Court Judge Noach Dear, Brooklyn Law School Class of 1992, as saying “I would say that roughly 90 percent of the credit card lawsuits are flawed and can’t prove the person owes the debt.” Judge Dear, who won election in 2007 to a 10 year term (2008 to 2019), has been Acting Supreme Court Justice since 2010 and presides on a daily basis over as many as 100 cases involving debt collection practices of credit card companies. A NY Times editorial, Robo Redux, noted that “Judge Dear recently dismissed a suit brought by American Express against a woman who contested the amount being demanded. The Amex employee who testified, the judge noted, gave what he called ‘robo-testimony’ — the same generic evidence given in other cases.” The Consumer Credit Fairness Act, which has been pending in the New York Legislature, would incorporate changes to the present state of consumer debt litigation practice and help level the playing field for unrepresented defendants.

SARA, the BLS Library catalog, has in its listing the internet version of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act Annual Report 2012 published by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The report summarizes the activities of the Bureau in administering the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA” or “the Act”), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692 et seq., during the past year.