In Edwards v. Niagara Credit Solutions, Inc. 2009 WL 3273300 (11th Cir. 2009) the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit decided the validity of a debt collector’s concerns that complying with the mini-Miranda requirement of the FDCPA risked violating the FDCPA’s prohibition against third party disclosure. Or, as the Court of Appeals described it, whether the debt collector “had to destroy the village to save it”. The debt collector challenged the district court’s conclusion that it was not entitled to rely on the bona fide error defense. The Court of Appeals was not sympathetic, explaining:
Niagara complans that if it is not permitted to leave out of its answer machine messages the disclosure required by section 1692e(11), the result will be that it cannot leave any messages on answering machines. That assumes an answering machine message that includes the disclosure required by section 1692e(11), if heard by a third party would violate section 1692c(b). We have not decided that issue, but even if Niagara’s assumption is correct, the answer is that the Act does not guarantee a debt collector the right to leave answering machine messages.