United States District Court, S.D. Florida
ORDER DENYING MOTION TO DISMISS:
Robert
N. Scola, Jr. United States District Judge.
Plaintiff
Ralph Higgens has brought this action against Defendant
Trident Asset Management, LLC, a debt collector, for
violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Higgens
complains Trident re-reported a debt to credit bureaus after
he disputed the debt. The FDCPA requires a plaintiff to
establish that the debt in dispute is a consumer debt. 15
U.S.C. § 1692a. In his complaint, Higgens asserts the
expense resulting in the debt was a “medical
bill” that was “primarily for personal, family or
household purposes.” (Compl. ¶9-10, ECF No. 22.)
Trident has moved to dismiss the amended complaint, arguing
that the allegations are insufficient to establish the debt
is a consumer debt. The Court finds Higgens's description
of the debt, though brief and cursory, sufficient to
establish the nature of the debt for the purposes of
surviving a motion to dismiss. For these reasons, the Court
denies Trident's motion to dismiss. (ECF No. 29.)
1.
Legal Standard
When
considering a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 12(b)(6), the Court must accept all of the
complaint's allegations as true, construing them in the
light most favorable to the plaintiff. Pielage v.
McConnell, 516 F.3d 1282, 1284 (11th Cir. 2008). A
pleading need only contain “a short and plain statement
of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to
relief.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2). “[T]he pleading
standard Rule 8 announces does not require detailed factual
allegations, but it demands more than an unadorned,
the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.”
Ashcroft, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quotation
omitted). A plaintiff must articulate “enough facts to
state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.”
Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570
(2007).
“A
claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads
factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable
inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct
alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. “The
plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability
requirement, ' but it asks for more than a sheer
possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.”
Id. “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a
cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do
not suffice.” Id. Thus, a pleading that offers
mere “labels and conclusions” or “a
formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of
action” will not survive dismissal. See
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. “Rule 8 marks a notable
and generous departure from the hyper-technical,
code-pleading regime of a prior era, but it does not unlock
the doors of discovery for a plaintiff armed with nothing
more than conclusions.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at
679.
Yet,
where the allegations “possess enough heft” to
suggest a plausible entitlement to relief, the case may
proceed. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 557. “[T]he
standard ‘simply calls for enough fact to raise a
reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal
evidence' of the required element.” Rivell v.
Private Health Care Sys., Inc., 520 F.3d 1308, 1309
(11th Cir. 2008). “And, of course, a well-pleaded
complaint may proceed even if it strikes a savvy judge that
actual proof of those facts is improbable, and ‘that a
recovery is very remote and unlikely.'”
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556.
2.
Legal Analysis
In
order to state a claim under the FDCPA, a plaintiff must
establish that: (1) he has been subject to collection
activity arising from a consumer debt; (2) the defendant is a
debt collector as defined by the FDCPA; (3) the defendant has
participated in an act or omission prohibited by the FDCPA.
See McCorriston v. L.W.T., Inc., 536 F.Supp.2d 1268,
1273 (M.D. Fla. 2008). Trident's motion to dismiss
addresses only the first element of an FDCPA claim requiring
the relevant debt be a “consumer debt.” 15 U.S.C.
§ 1692a(5). “Consumer debt” is defined as
“an obligation or alleged obligation of a consumer to
pay money arising out of a transaction in which the money,
property, insurance, or services which are the subject of the
transaction are primarily for personal, family, or household
purposes.” Id. In his amended complaint,
Higgens describes the debt as a “medical bill”
that “was primarily for personal, family or household
purposes”. (Compl. ¶9-10, ECF No. 22.) Trident
contends this brief description fails to establish that the
bill is a consumer debt.
To
support its motion, Trident primarily relies on Dokumaci
v. MAF Collection Services. No. 8:09-cv-02488-T-24-TGW,
2010 WL 2560024, at *2 (M.D. Fla. June 17, 2010). In that
case, the court found the complaint failed to establish that
the debt in a FDCPA claim constituted a consumer debt.
Id. That plaintiff provided only that “Mease
Hospital was the original creditor of the $38 debt.”
Id. The court found that this description revealed
only “the identity of the creditor, not the nature of
the debt.” Id. In some cases the identity of
an original creditor may implicate a certain category of
transactions that necessarily establishes the nature of a
debt. In others, however, as in Dokumaci, the
identity of the creditor alone is not enough. Here, in
contrast, Higgens did not name the original creditor but
instead described the debt as a “medical bill.”
(Compl. at ¶9-10.) Dokumaci is therefore not
helpful in determining whether Higgens sufficiently described
the relevant debt in the complaint: Higgens actually
described his debt, at least to an extent, but did not
identify the original creditor.
The
Court disagrees with Trident's claim that Higgens is
required to plead the actual circumstances surrounding the
medical bill. A brief description of the debt in the
complaint is sufficient to establish the nature of the debt.
See Frazier v. Absolute Collection Servs., 767
F.Supp.2d 1354, 1363 (N.D.Ga. 2011) (the
“plaintiff's obligation to pay a hospital bill that
arose for personal purposes is a consumer debt”);
Urquiaga v. Fin. Bus. & Consumer Solutions,
Inc., No. 16-cv-62110-BLOOM, 2016 WL 6877735, at *3
(S.D. Fla. Nov. 21, 2016) (Bloom, J.) (ruling the
“consumer debt element sufficiently plead”
because the “plaintiff states that the debt concerns a
student loan”); Jimenez v. Account Services,
No. 16-cv-61094-BLOOM, 2017 WL 455206, at *6-7 (S.D. Fla.
Feb. 2, 2017) (Bloom, J.) (finding the debt related to a
consumer debt because an invoice, referenced in the
pleadings, identifies the hospital, the plaintiff as a
‘patient', and the service as “provided by
the physician”). Specifically, medical expenses are
categorized as consumer debts for pleading purposes, contrary
to the defendant's claim that the complaint must provide
“additional facts that explain why this medical bill
qualifies as a consumer debt” (Def.'s Mot. at 4).
See Dunham v. Lombardo, 830 F.Supp.2d 1305, 1307
(S.D. Fla. 2011) (Seitz, J.) (finding that so long as a
complaint “demonstrate[s] the debt involves a mortgage,
credit card, medical bill, or other consumer debt,
” a consumer debt is established) (emphasis added);
Randolph v. Northeast Legal, No. 2:12-cv-03800-HGD,
2014 WL 2819122, at *3-4 (N.D. Ala. May 23, 2014) (finding
“that the debt at issue is a consumer debt as defined
by the FDCPA” because it “arises out of a medical
debt incurred by the plaintiff”). The Court finds
Higgens's description of the debt, though brief and
cursory, sufficient to establish the nature of the debt for
the purposes of surviving a motion to dismiss.
3.
Conclusion
Higgens's
brief description of the debt in the amended complaint is
sufficient to state a claim. For the reasons explained above,
the Court therefore ...