Help Wanted! Plaintiff Advocates for Equal Justice for Ordinary People, Please Apply.

This pro se case is heading to SCOTUS with a petition for writ of cert. I am looking for an attorney who wants to argue at the Supreme Court. The attorney should be freshly licensed or have a record of advocating for the poor and middle-class against big business,

Here is a summary of the case I drafted today, with an eye on the Supreme Court Justices as the audience.

If you are interested and able, please contact me at bohemian_books@yahoo.com with the best time to call you.

In September 2015, Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC, the second largest debt buyer in the United States, entered into a consent agreement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”). This agreement came after the CFPB investigated the company’s practices. As part of this investigation, Portfolio Recovery Associates submitted data in response to a Civil Investigation Demand issued by the CFPB. Upon reviewing this data, the CFPB concluded that many of the debts purchased by Portfolio Recovery Associates prior to this investigation contained numerous errors. In the consent agreement, Portfolio Recovery Associates acknowledged the CFPB’s interpretation of the data and agreed to address the identified issues by ceasing collection of alleged debts that lacked Original Account Level Documentation (“OALD”).

Laura Lynn Hammett was an alleged debtor on a list of debts allegedly purchased by PRA from Capital One Bank, USA [get exact name]. During discovery on this Federal Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) and state tort case, there was no mention of the Debt on the purchase agreement or any other documentation about the purchase submitted by PRA. Portfolio Recovery Associates claimed it had no OALD of the alleged $2,297.63 it tried to collect from Hammett both before and after the Consent Agreement was signed.

Contradictory to the Defendant’s claim, business records generated by PRA and produced in discovery indicated there were several pieces of OALD. PRA chose not to disclose those. This spoliation of evidence should have supported an inference against PRA, that the OALD shows the Debt to be inaccurate.

Eight months into the case, PRA said it found a single credit card statement. The statement had been sent to an address where Hammett did not receive mail, and lacked any indication of by whom, on what and where charges on the account were made.

In 2023, the CFPB and Portfolio Recovery Associates agreed that PRA violated the consent agreement against hundreds of thousands of alleged debtors, such as Hammett.

The Court based grant of summary judgement in favor of PRA on the single piece of the otherwise missing puzzle and a single sentence written by Hammett that the Court truncated shamelessly to alter the meaning. The Court said Hammett agreed that she owed the Debt. Hammett actually said repeatedly that she did not owe the Debt! The Court rejected the evidence of general inaccuracies in the debts purchased by PRA as collected and analyzed by the CFPB.

Hammett’s income is below the poverty level, but her FICO score was 803 at last glance, an exceptional score. Hammett could borrow about $8,000 to fund litigation. PRA has a line of credit of [_billion?__]. Hammett anticipated being able to hold depositions of officers of PRA and the CFPB with borrowed funds, that would be returned upon resolution of the case.

Hammett’s ability to afford depositions was destroyed when the Court denied her motion to file electronically. The cost of printing her documents in quadruplicate and delivering them to the courthouse in another county would cost about $8,000. (It also exposed Hammett to COVID, which she contracted during the proceedings.) Hammett, who is a fiscal conservative, could no longer afford depositions.

Hammett used a Freedom of Information Act request to the CFPB to obtain the records of her alleged Debt and the other Capital One debts supposedly purchased by PRA. The CFPB claimed all the information in its CID was confidential. Because PRA demanded confidentiality of the data it provided to the CFPB despite the negative treatment by the CFPB, the analysis of that data should be deemed accurate. If it was inaccurate, PRA should want that known.

PRA generated documentation, its communications log, call history, and a low-level representative’s policy and procedure manual, for Hammett’s case. The Court overlooked the discrepancies between PRA’s own records and found for the debt collector. Yet PRA demanded confidentiality of that data, as well, and the Court approved PRA’s demand.

The CFPB is paid for by public funds. It is tasked with protecting the public from unscrupulous debt collectors including Portfolio Recovery Associates. The Court is obviously not as adept at analyzing financial data as the CFPB. The Court acknowledged that he is not an expert and that his wife handles the finances in his house. [Find quote in hearing at courthouse]

The Court’s concurrence with a statement issued by the Arkansas Attorney General when the Court was Arkansas Solicitor General, saying the CFPB was on an unconstitutional power grab, gives the appearance that the Court would not want to give due weight to the evidence as analyzed by the public agency.

The Court’s last employment before taking a seat on the bench was as counsel to Walmart. Capital One issues Walmart branded credit cards. A significant dollar amount of Walmart branded credit is sold to PRA. Neither the District Court nor the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals found this to create a conflict that reasonably can appear as a bias in favor of the purported present owner of the Capital One Debt and against the pro se litigant. But they should have.

This case is the perfect extension of Loper, which overturned Chevron. We know the Supreme Court’s opinion is that deference to regulatory agency interpretation of law does not need to be given. But what about the facts? The Court should give deference to the regulatory agency’s interpretation of facts collected with public dollars when one of the public presents the interpretation as evidence in private litigation.

While we have the Supreme Court’s ear, this is the perfect case to decide whether the Court is discriminating against a class of people, albeit the majority class, that can’t afford attorney representation.