On June 12, the Supreme Court settled a question about the status of debt buyers under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) that has been the subject of uncertainty for years: “Is a person who purchases debt for his own account a debt collector if he tries to collect that debt?” Writing for a unanimous court in Henson v. Santander Consumer USA, Justice Neil McGill Gorsuch made his Supreme Court debut by giving creditors and debt buyers a clear win, and the rest of the world a grammar lesson.
The FDCPA defines a “debt collector” as anyone who “regularly collects or attempts to collect … debts owed or due … another.” The dispute between the parties centered on the correct grammatical usage of the word “owed,” and were Mrs. Bailey (my eighth grade grammar teacher) alive, she most certainly would have sided with the plaintiffs and given Justice Gorsuch a failing grade. Fortunately for Santander, Mrs. Bailey didn’t get a vote in this case.
