United States District Court, D. New Jersey
OPINION
ROBERT
B. KUGLER United States District Judge
This
matter comes before the Court upon Defendant's Motion to
Dismiss (Doc. No. 5) and Motion for Sanctions (Doc. No. 7),
and Plaintiff's Opposition (Doc. No. 8) and
Defendant's Reply (Doc. No. 9) thereto.
This
case concerns a collection letter sent by Capital Collection
Service to Mr. Vilbrun Macelus for recovery of $351.00, and
the entirety of this dispute appears to hinge on the
purported ambiguity of the language “Account for:
Advanced Endoscopy & Surgical Ctr., LLC.” Plaintiff
argues that “the least sophisticated consumer, ”
as interpreted under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
(“FDCPA”), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692-1692p,
would not understand to whom this debt belongs. See Brown
v. Card Serv. Ctr., 464 F.3d 450, 454 (3d Cir. 2006). We
disagree, and accordingly dismiss this suit for the reasons
stated below. However, because Plaintiff has some basis,
however flimsy, to bring this suit, we deny the motion for
sanctions.
I.
BACKGROUND
Advanced
Endoscopy & Surgical Center, LLC, apparently hired
Defendant Capital Collection Service to recover a debt of
$351.00 allegedly incurred by Plaintiff. (Am. Compl.) Capital
Collection Service is a company that attempts to collect
debts due to its clients, and contacts debtors by various
means including, as here, letters. What brings Mr. Macelus to
court today is a letter notifying Plaintiff of a claim for
collection and requesting that Plaintiff “pay or
dispute this account directly with this office.” (Am.
Compl. Ex. A.) The letter states in the top right corner what
it is about: “Account for: Advanced Endoscopy &
Surgical Ctr, LLC.” Below that, it states
“Service Dated: 08/24/15” and “Balance Due:
$351.00.” It states “This claim has been sent to
us for collection. We request that you pay or dispute this
debt directly with this office.” In case there was any
doubt about what these words and numbers refer to, the header
of the letter is “Capital Collection Service, ”
whose name ought to be a dead giveaway as to the purpose of
the letter. The letter also states “[t]his is an
attempt to collect a debt by a debt collector.”
Plaintiff,
though, discerned injustice in this language, and filed a
class action complaint. Plaintiff has since amended as of
right, and the operative complaint argues that
“[a]lthough the Letter identifies the name of the
facility the alleged debt was incurred to, the Letter fails
to explicitly or implicitly identify Plaintiff's current
creditor.” (Am. Compl. ¶ 33.) Plaintiff also
argues that as a “least sophisticated consumer, ”
he “was left unsure as to what creditor Defendant was
attempting to collect for.” (Id. at ¶
34.) He argues that “[m]erely naming the creditor as
the ‘account, ' does not explicitly convey that the
‘account' is the current creditor to whom the debt
is owed.” (Id. at 38.) Plaintiff argues this
is part of some pernicious pattern and practice used to
collect consumer debts.
Defendant
received the original complaint and promptly responded by
moving for dismissal and also notifying Plaintiff, consistent
with Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(c)(2), that if he did not drop the case,
Defendant would move for sanctions. Plaintiff, undeterred,
filed an amended complaint, which he now argues moots the
motion to dismiss, and opposed the sanctions motion. The
amended complaint has only one claim: that this conduct
violates the FDCPA, specifically 15 U.S.C. § 1692g.
This
Court addresses three issues today. First, does the amended
complaint moot the motion to dismiss? Second, if not, should
the Court grant the motion to dismiss for failure to state a
claim? And, finally, should the Court impose sanctions on
Plaintiff for filing a frivolous lawsuit?
II.
THE 12(b)(6) STANDARD
When
considering a motion to dismiss a complaint for failure to
state a claim, Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), the Court must accept
all well-pleaded allegations in the complaint as true and
view them in the light most favorable to the non-moving
party. A motion to dismiss may be granted only if the
plaintiff has failed to set forth fair notice of what the
claim is and the grounds upon which it rests that make such a
claim plausible on its face. Bell Atlantic Corp. v.
Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007). Although Rule 8 does not
require “detailed factual allegations, ” it
requires “more than an unadorned,
the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.”
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (citing
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555).
In
reviewing the sufficiency of a complaint, the Court must
“tak[e] note of the elements [the] plaintiff must plead
to state a claim. Second, it should identify allegations
that, because they are no more than conclusions, are not
entitled to the assumption of truth. Finally, [w]hen there
are well-pleaded factual allegations, [the] court should
assume their veracity and then determine whether they
plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.”
Connelly v. Lane Const. Corp., 809 F.3d 780, 787 (3d
Cir. 2016) (alterations in original) (internal citations and
quotation marks omitted).
III.
DISCUSSION
A.
Defendant's Motion to Dismiss Is Not Moot
Plaintiff
argues that Defendant's motion to dismiss is moot because
Plaintiff filed an amended complaint, which “supersedes
the original version in providing the blueprint for the
future course of a lawsuit.” Snyder v. Pascack
Valley Hospital,303 F.3d 271, 276 (3d Cir. 2002).
Plaintiff is right insofar as the amended complaint becomes
the operative complaint. But that alone does not the make the
motion to dismiss moot. Plaintiffs amended complaint merely
removed two counts, leaving only a claim under 15 U.S.C.
§ 1692g, under which a debt collector must identify the
name of the creditor to whom the debt is owed.
Defendant's motion to dismiss is responsive to this, and
there are no material changes to the claim in the amended
complaint. “If some of the defects raised in the
original motion remain in the new pleading, the court simply
may consider the motion as being addressed to the amended
pleading. To hold otherwise would be to exalt form over
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