Smith v. GC Services Limited Partnership

In action under Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, Dist. Ct. did not err in finding that defendant (entity hired by creditor to collect credit card debt from plaintiff) had waived any motion to compel arbitration of said claim, even though said arbitration clause was contained in credit card agreement between plaintiff and creditor. Record showed that defendant did not discover existence of arbitration agreement for eight months and then waited additional five months to file motion to compel arbitration, and that defendant lacked any reasonable excuse for said delays. Moreover, defendant’s decision to litigate merits of plaintiff’s legal theory via filing motion to dismiss was inconsistent with desire to arbitrate plaintiff’s claim, especially where defendant did not file motion to compel arbitration until after motion to dismiss had been denied, and after plaintiff had obtained class action certification and parties had litigated certain discovery disputes.