District Court (Cal.) Follows Walls v. Wells Fargo Bank, Bars FDCPA Claim

In Gusman v. Modern Adjustment Bureau, 2011 WL 2580358 (C.D.Cal. 2011), Judge Collins applied Walls v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 276 F.3d 502, 510 (9th Cir.2002) to bar a plaintiff’s FDCPA claim.  In Walls, the Ninth Circuit held that claims under the FDCPA are precluded when they are premised on an alleged violations of the Bankruptcy Code, in particular the discharge injunction in 11 U.S.C. § 524.

In the FAC, Plaintiff alleges nearly identical facts that caused dismissal of his original complaint. He alleges that, in September 2010, Defendant, a collection agency, attempted to collect a debt that Plaintiff had discharged in Bankruptcy in November 2007. Even though Plaintiff informed Defendant that the debt had been discharged, Defendant reported the debt on Plaintiff’s credit report. In the FAC, Plaintiff elaborated on how this action violated three sections of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”), 15 U .S.C. § 1692e(5) and (8) and § 1692f, and the California Rosenthal Fair Debt Col-lection Practices Act (“RFDCPA”), Cal. Civ.Code section 1788, et seq. The claims under § 1692e(5) and § 1692f are new to the FAC; they were not pled in the original complaint. . . .¶ . . .  Once again, all of Plaintiff’s claims turn on alleged violations of the Bankruptcy Code and are foreclosed by Walls. For example, Plaintiff’s § 1692e(5) and (8) claims rest on allegations that Defendant falsely threatened to report the “discharged” debt. Obviously, these claims cannot be adjudicated without determining whether those threats were false, which turns on whether the debt was discharged and thus protected by the discharge injunction in § 524. Similarly, Plaintiff’s § 1692f claim fails because there is only one act alleged by Plaintiff that was “unfair or unconscionable”: Defendant’s alleged efforts to collect Plaintiff’s discharged debt, which would have been improper only if those efforts violated the discharge injunction in § 524. In fact, the court in Walls addressed that very provision and found the plaintiff’s claims to be precluded. See 276 F.3d at 510. As in Walls, these claims all “necessarily entail[ ] bankruptcy-laden determinations,” id., so Plaintiff’s claims are precluded.