Yesterday, highlighting a recent decision from the U.S. District Court (D. Minn.), Minnesota Litigator commented on the challenges of debt collection under the FDCPA but also mentioned the factual backdrop of all debt collection efforts: getting money from people who do no have it, or who have only a little money, or who simply do not wish to part with their money for one reason or another. These categories collectively encompass nearly all of us, of course.
Just because a creditor’s collection efforts are not subject to the FDCPA (for example, for a debt owed by a business, not by a consumer) does not necessarily make recovery a streamlined and inexpensive process.
Cummins Law Office, P.A. represented Hong Kong-based Norman Graphic Printing Co. Ltd. (“NGP”) in a dispute against Stillwater-based Gartner Studios on, you guessed it, a debt collection dispute, for $80,000 up front and then 5% of any recovery.
But when it came time for NGP to pay Cummins (which allegedly succeeded in getting NGP $2.45 million from Gartner), NGP is alleged to have gone all Gartner on Cummins. That is, NGP is alleged to have defaulted on its obligations as to its debt for its debt collection efforts against Gartner Studios.
From a recent order in the case from Sr. U.S. District Court Judge Richard H. Kyle (D. Minn.), it would seem that NGP has no interest in paying up without a fight. One can only hope that NGP’s current counsel got paid up front; otherwise the prospect of yet another layer of lawsuit (a “tridebta”?) does not seem far-fetched.