Financial Services

The Federal Trade Commission’s Holder Rule limits a creditor’s liability for claims by restricting the debtor’s total recovery (including attorney fees) to the amount paid by the debtor under the assigned contract. Read More

In a junk fax case brought under the TCPA, the recipient's "prior express invitation or permission," like consent in an unsolicited telephone call case, is an affirmative defense with respect to which the court, when weighing class certification, considers only the defenses the defendant has actually advanced and for which it has presented evidence. Read More

Bid-rigging at foreclosure sales is an antitrust violation. Read More

A job applicant who would not have been hired even if inaccuracies in his credit report were corrected lacked Article III standing to bring a claim against the employer for failure to give him pre-adverse action notice as required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Read More

A collection attorney engages in debt collection for purposes of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act when he pursues judicial foreclosure because that proceeding allows for the collection of a deficiency judgment—unlike a nonjudicial foreclosure, the sole goal of which is to retake property given as security. Read More

Securitized mortgages that Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae held in trust for investors are considered the property of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, so HOAs cannot obtain a super-priority lien for unpaid dues that will take precedence over the mortgage loan. Read More

This California case is at the intersection of interpleader and foreclosure litigation. A foreclosure trustee interpleaded surplus funds following a foreclosure sale that was challenged by the borrower in a wrongful foreclosure action.  It shouldn’t have.  An interpleader lies only where the holder of third-party funds may face multiple liabilities, but Civil Code section 2924k sets forth exactly how surplus… Read More

A good faith purchaser of the contents of a self-storage unit takes the contents free and clear of the unit lessee’s claims, even if the lessor had violated the Storage Facility Act by failing to enter into a written lease with the lessee. Read More

Interpleader cross-complaint filed by the trustee of a deed of trust was correctly dismissed because there was no question that surplus proceeds from a foreclosure sale belonged to the trustor, notwithstanding the trustor’s ongoing wrongful foreclosure lawsuit. Read More

Borrower stated viable Fair Debt Collection Practices Act claim against loan servicer, which acquired the loan while it was in default, included improper fees in the reinstatement amount it quoted, and kept treating the loan as delinquent and pursued non-judicial foreclosure after the borrower had paid the reinstatement sum in full. Read More

In collections suit, collection agency plaintiff was held to Delaware’s three-year statute of limitations—which was the jurisdiction selected in the credit card account agreement’s choice of law clause—as opposed to the four-year limitations period in California, where the suit was brought. Read More

An appraiser hired to provide an appraisal for the lender's use does not owe the borrower a duty of care. Read More

A trial court should have given mortgage plaintiff further leave to amend a complaint to allege that party who foreclosed lacked any legal interest in the deed of trust, due to errors in the property’s chain of title. Read More

Holidays and weekends count against the running of the three-day notice to quit period in unlawful detainer unless the landlord states that the required rent payment may only be remitted by mail. Read More

Defendant was sufficiently engaged in collection efforts to qualify as a debt collection agency and hence did not run afoul of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act’s prohibition on creating the false belief in a consumer that a person other than the creditor is participating in the collection of the debt. Read More

Plaintiff could not state a TCPA claim against defendant HMO after it auto-dialed her seeking feedback on one of its in-network doctors, because she gave her consent to be contacted for a variety of purposes including quality improvement. Read More

Sanctions were improperly awarded under CCP 128.7 since plaintiffs’ suit was not frivolous; they had a nonfrivolous argument that their agreement to settle a prior action did not release the defendants in this follow-on suit. Read More

Lenders and loan servicers who act to collect on conventional real-estate-secured loans are "debt collectors" for purposes of California's Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Read More

San Francisco’s ordinance banning eviction of families with school-age children during the school year is not preempted by state law as it creates a substantive defense to eviction and does not interfere with state law unlawful detainer procedure. Read More

An unlawful detainer judgment does not bar the landlord’s civil action to collect past-due rent since the landlord can collect only limited amounts of rent in an unlawful detainer proceeding. Read More