In Hasbrouck v. Arrow Financial Services LLC, 2011 WL 1899250 (N.D.N.Y. 2011), Judge D’Agostino held that merely filing suit on a debt without documentation to support the debt at the time of the lawsuit does not violate the FDCPA, because a false or misleading representation requires materiality.
The majority of district and appellate courts have routinely held that, “the filing of a collection lawsuit without the immediate means of proving the debt does not violate the FDCPA”. See Krawczyk v. Centurion Capital Corp., 2009 WL 395458, at * 10 (N.D.Ill.2009) (citing Harvey v. Great Seneca Fin. Corp., 453 F.3d 324, 330–31 (6th Cir.2006) (even when viewed from the perspective of an unsophisticated consumer, the filing of a[ ] suit … does not have the natural consequence of harassing, abusing or op-pressing a debtor”)); see also Deere v. Javitch, Block and Rathbone LLP, 413 F.Supp.2d 886 (S.D.Ohio 2006) (the court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss noting that the plaintiff did not allege that the state court collection complaint or the affidavit at-tached contained a false representation); see also Clark v. Unifund CCR Partners, 2007 WL 1258113, at *4 (W.D.Pa.2007) (the allegation that the defendant law firm made a false or misleading representations by attaching an affidavit to a state court com-plaint without documentary evidence of the debt is insufficient to establish a claim under the FDCPA).