A woman who sued a collection law firm for twice attempting to garnish her wages for a debt she did not owe was awarded $1.26 million, according to a ruling July 29 by a federal jury in New Mexico.
The case against The Law Offices of Farrell & Sandlin originated in late 2006 when Target National Bank, a co-defendant in the case, assigned Lucinda Yazzie's delinquent credit card account to Farrell & Sandlin.
Yazzie, according to an article in the Albuquerque Journal, told the law firm during the initial call that she had never had a Target credit card and that she often received calls from creditors attempting to find another person in her area with the same name. But the law firm filed a lawsuit in April 2007 and obtained a garnishment order. The order was dropped when Yazzie's employer insisted the law firm had the wrong person.
Two years later, Farrell & Sandlin won another garnishment order for the same account. Yazzie’s employer formally denied the request. But the second order stayed in play until Yazzie sued Farrell & Sandlin in March 2010, claiming violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and other consumer statutes.
Through the legal process, it was found that a former Farrell & Sandlin employee, shortly after receiving the account, changed the Social Security number in the company’s system to that of the Yazzie named in the suit.
The firm claimed that this went against company policy and entered a bona fide error defense, which was rejected.
Target Bank, it was found, had supplied Farrell & Sandlin with the name, address and Social Security number of the true debtor, not the Lucinda Yazzie named in their garnishment actions. The extent of Target's liability in the case was not immediately clear. Target had attempted several times to be dismissed from the lawsuit, with no success.
The federal jury awarded Yazzie $161,000 in actual damages for emotional distress and $1.1 million in punitive damages.
The paper quoted only Yazzie's attorney, Rob Treinen, in the story. An attempt this weekend to reach Farrell & Sandlin officials for comment was not successful.
