One law that protects members of the general public is the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act(“FDCPA”), a Federal law that prohibits a wide variety of harassing and abusive practices by debt collectors. The FDCPA is a powerful tool that our office makes extensive use of in many cases. One clause that debt collectors sometimes try to take advantage of in the FDCPA provides that if they win the case the consumer may have to pay for the attorney fees of the company they sued. That is a clause that I have never successfully invoked against one of my clients. While the FDCPA does provide that a consumer may have to pay the fees of the debt collector if they lose the case, the standard for doing so is high, so high that it is very, very hard to reach. In effect, the lawsuit brought by the consumer has to be brought in bad faith, such that they should have known at the time it was brought that it was frivolous. I was recently reading a great court opinion about this issue, the case of Anderson v. Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC(U.S. District Court, E.D. Ill., Case No. 4:15-CV-766. The ruling in Anderson made clear that any consumer who brings a case will not have to pay attorney fees even if they lose so long as the case was not “objectively unreasonable”.
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Loan Lawyers is made up of experienced consumer rights attorneys who use every available resource to develop comprehensive debt solution strategies. Our goal is to take on those burdens, resolve those problems, and allow our clients to sleep soundly knowing they are on the path to a better future.
