Lawsuit Filings Decline for Second Straight Month

Lawsuit filings for all key statutes impacting debt collectors dropped in May, according to the latest numbers pulled from U.S. district courts. 

Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawsuits showed the largest decline from April to May, 19.6%, followed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act at 15.4% and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act at 14.8%, according to the report.

There were 349 TCPA lawsuits in May, compared to 434 in April; 357 FCRA lawsuits in April compared to 302 in May; and 985 FDCPA lawsuits in April compared to 839 in May. After a spike in the numbers for all three statutes in March, filings also slowed in April. WebRecon provided the numbers gathered from court filings.

WebRecon CEO Jack Gordon states in the report that TCPA and FCRA lawsuit numbers remain significantly higher as of May compared to the same period in 2015. WebRecon also reports that this May 35% of all consumer litigation plaintiffs had sued at least once before under the TCPA, FDCPA or FCRA.

Year-to-date through May 2015 consumers had filed 1,279 TCPA cases, compared with 2,003 filings through this May, a 56.6% increase. FCRA filings through May 2016 increased 26% with 1,550 filings, compared to 1,230 as of May 2015, according to WebRecon.

The FCRA year-to-date filings fell 8.4%, with 4,883 as of May 2015 and 4,425 as of this May.

Approximately 927 different companies were sued in May, down from 950 in April, and there were about 1,267 unique plaintiffs, including multiple plaintiffs in one suit.

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