Huertas v. Galaxy Asset Management
- Citation:
- 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 10-2532, Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, April 11, 2011
- Tag(s):
-
- Ruling:
- The Court ruled that (1) under New Jersey law, a debtor's debt obligation is not extinguished by the expiration of the statute of limitations, even though the debt is ultimately unenforceable in a court of law; (2) the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA") permits a debt collector to seek voluntary repayment of a time-barred debt so long as the debt collector does not initiate or threaten legal action in connection with its debt collection efforts; and (3) a debt collector does not violate the Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA") by requesting a consumer report with the intent of using the report to review or collect a consumer's account, it is the consumer reporting agency that the claimant could potentially be liable under FCRA.
- Procedural context:
- Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey which dismissed the debtor's claims against Asset Management Professionals ("AMP") for violation of the FDCPA and Applied Card Bank f/k/a Cross Country Bank ("ACB") for violation of the FCRA.
- Facts:
- Appellant appealed from the district court's ruling that his debt obligation is not extinguished by the expiration of the statute of limitations. Appellant incurred credit card debt owed to ACB, which sold the debt obligation to Galaxy Asset Management, which ultimately retained AMP to collect on the debt. Appellant sought and received credit from ACB, and accumulated credit card debt. Subsequently, after the statute of limitations on appellant's debt had allegedly expired, AMP sent appellant a letter indicating that his account has been reassigned and requested that he contact AMP to resolve the issue. At the bottom of the letter was printed "THIS IS AN ATTEMPT TO COLLECT A DEBT." In connection with its attempt to collect the debt from appellant, AMP caused TransUnion, a consumer reporting agency, to issue a consumer report which contained information regarding the debt that the appellant accrued with ACB's credit card.
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