In
Ewing v. Med-1 Solutions, Judge Sweeney II of the District Court for the Southern District of Indiana granted summary judgment for the defendant, regarding the plaintiff’s allegation that the defendant violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act by reporting her debt to TransUnion after the plaintiff disputed the debt. In its ruling, the court highlighted that a company that takes
reasonable precautions and maintains
reasonable procedures to avoid clerical or factual mistakes satisfies the third element in maintaining a bona fide error defense to an alleged FDCPA violation.
In that case, the defendant sent the plaintiff debt collection letters in 2015 regarding medical services, and the plaintiff disputed the debt in 2016. Upon receipt of the plaintiff’s dispute letter, the defendant’s receptionist inadvertently forwarded the letter to the wrong department, and the dispute was not reported. When a 2018 TransUnion credit report indicated that the dispute of the debt had not been reported to the credit reporting agency, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit alleging that the defendant violated the FDCPA by “continuing to report her debt to a credit reporting agency when [the defendant] knew the debt was disputed by her.”