FDCPA Lawsuits Up in First Half of March; Pull Even Year-over-Year

The number of lawsuits filed in the first half of March under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and other consumer statutes continued to regain steam from a slower February with increases in every category over both the last period and YTD numbers over 2011, with FDCPA cases (up 17.3%), FCRA (up 14%), TCPA (up 7.9%) and TILA (up 55.9%).

The following statistics are provided courtesy of WebRecon LLC.

FDCPA and Other Consumer Lawsuit Statistics, March 1-15, 2012

Year to date, FCRA and TCPA continue to show strong growth over 2011, while FDCPA is still neck and neck with last year’s number and TILA is still considerably lower.

Full Statistics:

There were about 538 lawsuits filed under consumer statutes in the first half of March 2012. Here is an approximate breakdown:

• 460 FDCPA
• 122 FCRA
• 41 TCPA
• 53 TILA

Summary:

• Of those cases, there were about 602 unique plaintiffs (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit).
• Of those plaintiffs, about 193, or 33%, had sued under consumer statutes before.
• Combined, those plaintiffs have filed about 1146 lawsuits since 2001
• Actions were filed in 118 different US District Court branches.
• About 717 different collection firms and creditors were sued.

The top courts where lawsuits were filed:

• 54 Lawsuits: California Central District Court – Western Division – Los Angeles
• 29 Lawsuits: Colorado District Court – Denver
• 25 Lawsuits: Illinois Northern District Court – Chicago
• 22 Lawsuits: Pennsylvania Eastern District Court – Philadelphia
• 21 Lawsuits: California Southern District Court – San Diego
• 16 Lawsuits: Minnesota District Court – Dmn
• 15 Lawsuits: New York Eastern District Court – Brooklyn
• 14 Lawsuits: Michigan Eastern District Court – Detroit
• 13 Lawsuits: Georgia Northern District Court – Atlanta
• 12 Lawsuits: New York Southern District Court – Foley Square

The most active consumer attorneys were:

• Representing 27 Consumers: David J Philipps
• Representing 14 Consumers: David M Larson
• Representing 13 Consumers: Jody B Burton
• Representing 13 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg
• Representing 12 Consumers: Everett H Mechem
• Representing 8 Consumers: Bruce K Warren
• Representing 8 Consumers: Todd S Dion
• Representing 7 Consumers: Gary D Nitzkin
• Representing 6 Consumers: Adam J Fishbein
• Representing 6 Consumers: Sofia Balile

Statistics Year to Date

2501 total lawsuits for 2012, including:

• 2144 FDCPA
• 524 FCRA
• 203 TCPA
• 194 TILA

Number of Unique Plaintiffs: 2596 (including multiple plaintiffs in one suit)

The most active consumer attorneys of the year:

• Representing 72 Consumers: Sergei Lemberg
• Representing 61 Consumers: David M Larson
• Representing 58 Consumers: Craig T Kimmel
• Representing 56 Consumers: David J Philipps
• Representing 37 Consumers: Joseph M Meinhardt

About WebRecon LLC: Creditors and collection firms use WebRecon’s services to easily segregate predictably litigious consumers from their databases. A significant percentage of consumer litigation is initiated by the same consumers over and over again, and screening them out of the general population can reduce lawsuits significantly.