Sixth Circuit Throws Out Debt-Buyer Settlement

The National Consumer Law Center’s e-blast this morning contained some very good news for consumers.  The 6th Circuit has just thrown out a nationwide settlement involving Midland, a robo-signing debt buyer, and over a million consumers.  This will allow other class and individual actions to proceed against Midland. The suit was thrown out for faulty notice to class members, who were not told in the settlement notice that they’d lose their individual fraud claims against Midland.  You may have heard about this case before, as it is the one in which an Ohio District Court held that “robo-signing” affidavits in debt-collection actions violate the FDCPA because the allegation of personal knowledge is false and misleading.  Midland employees had beensigning between 200 and 400 computer-generated affidavits per day for use in debt collection actions, without personal knowledge of the accounts. The unwound settlement would have paid consumers about $17 each.