In Davis v. Credit Bureau of the South, the defendant debt collector was not a credit reporting agency as its name implied, but a collection agency, and since FDCPA 15 U.S.C. s. 1692e(16) explicitly prohibits a debt collector from falsely claiming is it a consumer reporting agency, the judge found the debt collector violated the law. The violation amounted to the appearance of the name on the debt collector's stationary and reference to its name in a phone call. Ms. Davis neither alleged nor proved any actual harm resulting from the use of a prohibited name, but her attorneys correctly argued the FDCPA's mandates an award of reasonable attorney's fees.
In finding there were 'special circumstances' compelling it to find the attorney's fees request unreasonable, the court focused on:
- Ms. Davis contested a $107.23 water bill owed to the City of Shreveport, Louisiana, where she lived
- Ms. Davis falsely claimed she was a Texas resident
- she requested the debt collector send the water bill to her parents' address in Texas, thereby generating jurisdiction in Texas under a failed Texas Debt Collection Act claim
- Ms. Davis employed her attorneys prior to some of the complained of FDCPA violations
- she briefly worked for her attorneys
- at least one call forming the basis of the suit was made in her attorney's presence and recorded by her attorneys
- it was inferrable that the extreme attorney's fee request was an aggressive 'opening bid' to garner the maximum negotiated attorney's fees amount
- her attorney's work was full of grammatical errors, formatting issues, and improper citations
- the work was of neither the quality nor the quantity (there was no trial, it was decided on summary judgment) that would support fees of $450/hour or over 250 hours of work
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