Carvana v. MFG Financial, Inc.

N/A

OUTCOME: Summary judgment in favor of the Plaintiff

In Carvana v. MFG Financial, Inc., Eric Stephenson obtained partial summary judgment on the Plaintiff’s FDCPA improper venue claim and defeated several defenses. Primarily the Court ruled on the applic ... ability of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine to the Plaintiff’s FDCPA claims, but the Court also ruled on issues pertaining to res judicata, compulsory counterclaims, and the FDCPA bona fide error defense. Most notably, the Utah Federal District Court ruled that: “And even if the state proceedings are final for purposes of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the court still concludes that the doctrine is inoperable because the injury alleged by Carvana in his FDCPA venue provision violation claim did not arise from the state court judgment, but instead arose from the practices Defendants employed in collecting the underlying debt. Simply put, Carvana’s FDCPA venue provision violation claim issues no invitation to this court to overturn prior state court judgments.” The Court also ruled in favor of the Plaintiff on various other issues. It ruled that the doctrine of res judicata did not bar Plaintiff’s FDCPA claims and that his FDCPA claims were similarly not barred as compulsory counterclaims. The Court ruled that the FDCPA venue provision applies to post-judgment collection efforts. And finally, the Court ruled that the Defendants were not entitled to the bona fide error defense as they had not met any of the requirements for asserting it.