Oliva v. Blatt, Hasenmiller, Leibsker & Moore, LLC, No. 15-2516 (7th Cir. 2016)
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The Blatt firm filed a collection lawsuit against Oliva in the first municipal district of the Circuit Court of Cook County. Oliva resided in Cook County. Under the Seventh Circuit’s 1996 “Newsom” decision, interpreting the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) venue provision, debt collectors were allowed to file suit in any of Cook County’s municipal districts if the debtor resided in Cook County or signed the underlying contract there. While the Oliva suit was pending, the Seventh Circuit overruled Newsom, with retroactive effect (Suesz, 2014). One week later, Blatt voluntarily dismissed the suit. Oliva sued Blatt for violating the FDCPA’s venue provision as newly interpreted by Suesz. The district court granted Blatt summary judgment, finding that it relied on Newsom in good faith and was immune from liability under the FDCPA’s bona fide error defense, 15 U.S.C. 1692k(c), which precludes liability for unintentional violations resulting from a good‐faith mistake. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting an argument that the defense should not apply because the firm’s violation resulted from its mistaken interpretation of the law. In relying on Newsom, the firm simply followed the circuit's controlling law; its failure to foresee the retroactive change of law was not a mistaken legal interpretation, but an unintentional bona fide error
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on July 24, 2017.
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In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 15 2516 RONALD OLIVA, Plaintiff Appellant, v. BLATT, HASENMILLER, LEIBSKER & MOORE, LLC, Defendant Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:14 cv 06447 — Elaine E. Bucklo, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED NOVEMBER 12, 2015 — DECIDED JUNE 14, 2016 ____________________ Before BAUER, FLAUM, and MANION, Circuit Judges. MANION, Circuit Judge. This appeal requires us to consider whether the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act’s “bona fide er ror” defense, 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(c), protects a debt collector from liability for engaging in conduct that was expressly per mitted under the controlling law in effect at the time, but that is later prohibited after a retroactive change of law. 2 No. 15 2516 In 2013 Blatt, Hasenmiller, Leibsker & Moore, LLC, filed a collection lawsuit against Ronald Oliva in the first municipal district of the Circuit Court of Cook County. When Blatt filed the action, its choice of venue was expressly permitted under the FDCPA’s venue provision as interpreted by Newsom v. Friedman, 76 F.3d 813 (7th Cir. 1996). We subsequently over ruled Newsom, with retroactive effect, in Suesz v. Med 1 Solu tions, LLC, 757 F.3d 636 (7th Cir. 2014) (en banc). Oliva then sued Blatt for violating the FDCPA’s venue pro vision as newly interpreted by Suesz. The district court granted summary judgment for Blatt, finding that Blatt relied on Newsom in good faith and was therefore immune from lia bility under the FDCPA’s bona fide error defense. That de fense precludes liability for unintentional violations resulting from a good faith mistake. On appeal, Oliva argues that the bona fide error defense does not apply because Blatt’s violation resulted from its mis taken interpretation of the law. See Jerman v. Carlisle, 559 U.S. 573 (2010). We disagree. In abiding by our interpretation in Newsom, Blatt simply followed the controlling law of this cir cuit. Its failure to foresee the retroactive change of law her alded by Suesz was not a mistaken legal interpretation, but an unintentional bona fide error that precludes liability under the Act. We therefore affirm the district court’s entry of sum mary judgment for Blatt. I. In December 2013, Blatt filed a debt collection lawsuit against Ronald Oliva on behalf of Portfolio Recovery Associ ates, LLC. The suit was filed at the Richard J. Daley Center in No. 15 2516 3 downtown Chicago, in the first municipal district of the Cir cuit Court of Cook County. At the time, Oliva resided in Or land Park, Illinois, which is in the fifth municipal district of the Circuit Court of Cook County. In deciding where to file suit, Blatt relied on our then binding precedent in Newsom v. Friedman, 76 F.3d 813 (7th Cir. 1996). Newsom held that the Circuit Court of Cook County is a single “judicial district” for purposes of the FDCPA’s venue provision, which requires collection suits to be filed in the “ju dicial district or similar legal entity” where the contract was signed or where the debtor resides. 15 U.S.C. § 1692i(a)(2). Under Newsom, then, debt collectors were allowed to file suit in any of the Circuit Court of Cook County’s various munici pal districts so long as the debtor resided in Cook County or signed the underlying contract there. Since Oliva resided in Cook County, Blatt was allowed to file suit in Cook County’s first municipal district under Newsom. In July 2014, while Blatt’s lawsuit was still pending, a di vided en banc panel of this court overruled Newsom in Suesz v. Med 1 Solutions, LLC, 757 F.3d 636 (7th Cir. 2014). The Suesz court held that a “judicial district or similar legal entity” un der § 1692i is “the smallest geographic area that is relevant for determining venue in the court system in which the case is filed.” Suesz, 757 F.3d at 638. Although Suesz dealt only with collection lawsuits filed in Marion County, Indiana, the appli cation of its holding to suits filed in Cook County is now clear: collection lawsuits governed by § 1692i(a)(2) may no longer be filed in any of the various municipal districts of the Circuit Court of Cook County, but must instead be filed in the partic ular municipal district where the debtor resides or where the 4 No. 15 2516 underlying contract was signed. The Suesz court also explic itly declined to overrule Newsom on a prospective basis only, citing “serious constitutional concerns” about adopting a new rule while refusing to apply it to the parties before the court. Suesz, 757 F.3d at 649. Although Suesz did not specify the scope of its retroactivity, we assume without deciding that Suesz’s holding applies retroactively to Blatt, and that Blatt’s decision to file suit in the first municipal district of the Circuit Court of Cook County was a violation of § 1692i as interpreted by Suesz. About a week after Suesz was decided, Blatt voluntarily dismissed its action without prejudice. Oliva then brought an FDCPA claim against Blatt in federal court, alleging that Blatt was retroactively liable under Suesz because it filed suit in the first municipal district of the Circuit Court of Cook County, rather than the fifth municipal district, where Oliva resided when the suit commenced.1 The parties filed cross motions for summary judgment, and the district court denied Oliva’s motion and granted summary judgment for Blatt. The court ultimately concluded that Blatt was protected from liability under the FDCPA’s bona fide error defense because it relied on Newsom in good faith. Oliva appeals. 1 There is no suggestion, however, that Oliva was in any way incon venienced by Blatt’s selection of venue. To the contrary, when asked at his deposition why it mattered to him that the collection suit was filed at the Daley Center rather than the municipal district where he resided, Oliva responded, “I would say it only matters to me because it matters to my lawyer.” No. 15 2516 5 II. We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, construing all facts and reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Hammarquist v. United Cont’l Holdings, 809 F.3d 946, 949 (7th Cir. 2016). Sum mary judgment is required if the movant shows that “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). Section 1692i(a)(2) of the FDCPA “requires a collector of consumer debts to file its debt collection suit in the ‘judicial district or similar legal entity’ where the contract was signed or where the debtor resides.” Suesz, 757 F.3d at 637. “A viola tion makes the debt collector liable to the debtor for statutory and actual damages, as well as attorney fees.” Id. at 639. Not every violation, however, results in automatic liability for the debt collector. Under the bona fide error defense, a debt col lector is shielded from liability under the Act if it “shows by a preponderance of evidence that the violation was not inten tional and resulted from a bona fide error notwithstanding the maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such error.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(c). As noted above, the district court granted summary judg ment to Blatt based on its finding that Blatt’s alleged violation of the FDCPA’s venue provision was the result of a bona fide error under § 1692k(c). The parties do not dispute that Blatt’s violation was unintentional or that Blatt maintained proce dures reasonably adapted to avoid the error that led to the violation. Therefore, the only issue before the court is whether the violation was the result of a bona fide error. 6 No. 15 2516 We have little trouble concluding that Blatt relied in good faith on our then binding precedent in Newsom when decid ing to file its collection lawsuit against Oliva in the first mu nicipal district of the Circuit Court of Cook County. Newsom was the settled law of this circuit for nearly eighteen years at the time, and Newsom’s unambiguous holding expressly per mitted Blatt to file suit exactly where it did. That Suesz later overruled Newsom does not change our analysis; Suesz may have created a retroactive cause of action for violations that preceded it, but it does not retroactively proscribe the appli cation of the bona fide error defense. We therefore hold that Blatt’s violation of § 1692i as interpreted by Suesz was the re sult of a bona fide error that precludes liability under the Act. Oliva objects that this result cannot be reconciled with the Supreme Court’s decision in Jerman v. Carlisle, 559 U.S. 573 (2010), which held that the bona fide error defense does not apply to “a violation resulting from a debt collector’s mis taken interpretation of the legal requirements of the FDCPA.” Id. at 577; see also id. at 604–05. Jerman does not apply here, however, for several reasons. First, Jerman applies only when the debt collector’s violation results from the debt collector’s mistaken interpretation of the law, id., and here there is no in dication that Blatt’s violation was the result of any mistaken legal interpretation on the part of Blatt. Blatt’s conduct was expressly allowed under Newsom, which was the controlling law of this circuit when the conduct occurred. In filing suit where it did, therefore, Blatt did not interpret the relevant venue provision of the FDCPA, mistakenly or otherwise, but simply abided by our interpretation in Newsom. Blatt’s deci sion to follow Newsom does not amount to an independent (and entirely futile) “interpretation” of that which Newsom had already definitively interpreted and handed down as the No. 15 2516 7 binding law of this Circuit.2 Consequently, if Blatt’s selection of venue under Newsom was the result of a mistaken interpre tation of the FDCPA, it was the result of our mistaken inter pretation, not Blatt’s. This is not to say that Blatt did not exercise any independ ent judgment in deciding where to sue in Cook County. In de ciding whether to file suit at the Daley Center, Blatt had to determine both that Oliva resided in Cook County, and that in light of that fact the Daley Center was an appropriate venue under Newsom. Neither of Blatt’s independent judgments in this regard, however, involved a legal interpretation of the FDCPA. Moreover, even if Blatt’s violation was the result of its own interpretation of the law, Jerman still would not apply, for Blatt’s interpretation was not mistaken when it was made. That is, assuming Blatt independently interpreted the control ling law of Newsom before filing suit, its interpretation was undisputedly correct, since it relied on Newsom to file suit ex actly where Newsom allowed. That Blatt’s conduct would later be deemed a violation under Suesz is not the result of Blatt’s 2 In Jerman, by contrast, there was no controlling authority governing the debt collector’s challenged conduct, so the debt collector had to inter pret the FDCPA for itself to decide if its conduct was legal. Jerman, 559 U.S. at 579–80 & n.2. Similarly, the debt collector in Suesz had to interpret the FDCPA’s venue provision in determining where it was permissible to file suit in Marion County, Indiana, since Newsom’s holding was limited to the Circuit Courts of Illinois, and did not extend to the filing of lawsuits in other states. See Newsom, 76 F.3d at 818–20 (holding only that the Circuit Courts of Illinois, including the Circuit Court of Cook County, are indi vidual judicial districts under § 1692i). 8 No. 15 2516 mistaken interpretation of the FDCPA, but of a retroactive change of law that was entirely outside Blatt’s control. In sum, Blatt has shown by a preponderance that its chal lenged conduct was the result of an inadvertent good faith mistake that it took every reasonable precaution to avoid. The bona fide error defense applies, and the district court properly granted summary judgment for Blatt.3 III. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 3 Blatt also raises several alternative arguments in support of the dis trict court’s entry of summary judgment. It contends that it was inde pendently immune from liability under the “safe harbor” provision of § 1692k(e); that it did not violate § 1692i because it filed suit in the judicial district where the underlying contract was signed; and that Suesz’s retro activity does not extend to collection suits filed in Cook County. Because we conclude that summary judgment was proper for the reasons dis cussed above, we do not reach these alternative arguments.
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