Word: sue
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...appeals court, though, took the novel but not unheard-of position that the law required it to think of Brown as essentially an idiot, or in legal terms, "the least sophisticated debtor." Viewed this way, Brown could easily have understood the letter as a threat to sue. She now gets the chance to prove her claim that the Card Service Center almost never sues and, therefore, the letter was deceptive. If she wins, she and other members of the class can recoup whatever losses they actually suffered (compensation for a job lost, say, or a mortgage application rejected because...
...Sue Up or Shut Up! A curious case may mean that debt collectors can't threaten to sue their targets unless they really mean...
...other words, "or I'll sue." Brown did not believe she owed that much, but it was the threat to take her to court that prompted her call to the debt collectors. She told them that she couldn't pay right then, and they were, shall we say, unsympathetic. So they sent more letters, and made phone calls at odd hours...
...thing they didn't do was sue, which emboldened Brown to show the letters to a lawyer. One thing led to another, and last June she found herself before the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia as the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against the collection agency. Her lawyer, Cary Flitter, argued that, because the agency never intended to sue, only to scare her and some 13,000 others who had received similar letters in Pennsylvania, it had engaged in a "deceptive" practice prohibited by federal law. A U.S. district court had already dismissed this argument, pointing...
...abuses that the act specifically barred was any "threat to take action ... that is not intended to be taken," a provision that clearly covered an empty threat to sue. But in Brown's case, the district court said the word "could" meant that Brown hadn't received a threat, only a statement that legal action "was possible," sort of a heads-up that other courts seemed to find acceptable...