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CS an­nounces con­sumer class ac­tions in co­oper­a­tion with Weis­berg and Mey­ers LLP

January 5, 2010

Ca­mara & Sib­ley and Weis­berg & Mey­ers today de­clared war on the debt-col­lec­tion in­dustry. Debt col­lect­ors across the United States routinely vi­ol­ate the fed­er­al Fair Debt Col­lec­tion Prac­tices Act and oth­er state and fed­er­al con­sumer-pro­tec­tion stat­utes. Debt col­lect­ors are largely un­deterred by judg­ments in in­di­vidu­al cases be­cause the stat­utory dam­ages for vi­ol­a­tions of the FD­CPA are lim­ited to $1,000 per plaintiff — and for every plaintiff who sues, debt col­lect­ors are able to sub­ject hun­dreds of oth­ers to the same prac­tice who do not take ad­vant­age of their leg­al rights.

Ca­mara & Sib­ley will pro­sec­ute these cases as class ac­tions. The FD­CPA spe­cific­ally au­thor­izes class ac­tions against debt col­lect­ors and provides for stat­utory dam­ages of up to $500,000 per class ac­tion, plus at­tor­neys' fees and costs. Be­cause vi­ol­a­tions of­ten take the form of let­ters that do not com­ply with the re­quire­ments of the FD­CPA, and be­cause these let­ters are uni­form across plaintiffs, these cases are ideally suited to class-ac­tion treat­ment. Ca­mara & Sib­ley in­tends to file and pro­sec­ute six to ten class ac­tions per month against debt col­lect­ors around the coun­try.

Ca­mara & Sib­ley has ex­per­i­ence in class ac­tions and com­plex com­mer­cial lit­ig­a­tion. Weis­berg & Mey­ers has sub­ject-mat­ter ex­per­i­ence in con­sumer law — and reg­u­larly pro­sec­utes in­di­vidu­al FD­CPA ac­tions across the coun­try. To­geth­er, our firms have a com­bin­a­tion of com­pet­en­cies that we hope will vastly im­prove private en­force­ment of the FD­CPA and sim­il­ar con­sumer stat­utes.

Noah Rad­b­il is lead coun­sel for our con­sumer-class-ac­tion dock­et.