McMahon v. LVNV Funding, LLC

In action alleging violation of Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Dist. Ct. erred in denying plaintiff’s motion for certification of class action under circumstances where plaintiff alleged that defendants sent misleading dunning letter that led consumers to believe that subject debt was legally enforceable, when in fact debt was not legally enforceable because statute of limitations had run. While Dist. Ct. found that issues common to proposed class did not predominate over issues affecting individual class members since factual questions remained as to whether class members actually paid on debt because of language in letter, Ct. of Appeals found that Dist. Ct. should have certified proposed class, where proposed class met numerosity, commonality, typicality and adequacy requirements of Rule 23(a), and where issues of causation and damages could have been bifurcated from case. Moreover, because FDCPA is strict liability statute, all members of proposed class would be entitled to statutory damages regardless of whether class members had made any payments following receipt of dunning letter.