District Court (Tex.) Confirms that FDCPA Provides No Remedy for Injunctive Relief

In light of these holdings, this Court declines to depart from the majority rule that the FDCPA does not provide equitable relief. Even under the lenient standard of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), the Court finds that Plaintiff has failed to demonstrate that he has pled a plausible claim for equitable relief under the FDCPA. Such a claim is unavailable legally, irrespective of Plaintiff’s factual allegations.  Because this Court finds that the FDCPA does not provide an action for equitable relief, other than in relation to the FTC’s enforcement mechanism, it is not necessary to determine whether such injunctive or declaratory relief is available to private litigants. Furthermore, courts which have addressed this question have determined that even if the FDCPA provided for equitable relief, such remedies are not available to private litigants. See, e.g., Goldberg v. Winston & Morrone, P.C., 1997 WL 139526, at *3 (S.D. N.Y. 1997); Gammon v. GC Servs. Ltd. Partnership, 162 F.R.D. 313, 319 (N.D. Ill. 1995) (collecting cases); see also Sibley v. Fulton DeKalb Collection Serv., 677 F.2d 830, 834 (11th Cir. 1982) (noting that equitable relief is not available to individual under civil liability section of FDCPA). Thus, even if equitable relief was available under the FDCPA, it would not be available to Plaintiff in this case, as a private litigant.