Court upholds $311K award against debt collector

March 9th, 2011 - 8:02 pm ICT by Aishwarya Bhatt  

Montana, Mar 9 (THAINDIAN NEWS) A North Dakota law firm has been ordered to pay about $311,000 in damages to a man who they tried to collect debt from.

Timothy McCollough had some old credit card debts that date back to the 1990s. The loan was then sold by Chase Manhattan to CACV of Colorado back in 2005. In a bid to receive the debt CACV sued McCollough for the debt of $3,816.

McCollough had sustained a head injury that rendered him disabled as such he depended on Social Security. He defended himself in court and argued that the statute of limitations of the loan had expired. He further claimed that he had no money. The court upheld his arguments and dismissed the case.

According to the court reports, CACV then contacted the law firm Johnson, Rodenburg & Lauinger in 2006 to collect all their outstanding debts for them. After taking over the collection of the debt, JRL filed a debt collection suit against McCollough. After series of interactions, JRL acknowledged their fault and withdrew their charges against McCollough.

That was when McCollough also sued the law firm for the harassment. The judge upheld the argument of McCollough that JRL violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and ordered them to pay $311,000. The case was appealed by JRL but an appellate court upheld the earlier ruling.

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