St. John v. Cach, LLC

Dist. Ct. did not err in dismissing for failure to state cause of action plaintiffs’ complaints alleging that defendants-debt collectors violated section 1692e(5) of FDCPA, which prohibits debt collectors from threatening to take action that they do not intend to take in course of collecting debt, where defendants filed collection lawsuits that were later voluntarily dismissed without prejudice prior to going to trial. Although plaintiffs argued that conduct of defendants indicted that they never intended to proceed to trial, and thus violated section 1692e(5), plaintiffs had failed to allege that defendants did not intend to proceed to trial at time when they filed underlying collection actions. Moreover, because mere filing of collection actions does not include implicit declaration that defendants intended to advance action all way through to trial, plaintiffs failed to show that defendants ever threatened to take collection actions to trial. Also, debt collectors are free to engage in customary cost benefit analysis when considering how far to advance litigation.