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- NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
- being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
- The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
- prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
- See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
-
- SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
-
- Syllabus
-
- HEINTZ et al. v. JENKINS
- certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
- the seventh circuit
- No. 94-367. Argued February 21, 1995-Decided April 18, 1995
-
- Petitioner Heintz is a lawyer representing a bank that sued respond-
- ent Jenkins to recover the balance due on her defaulted car loan.
- After a letter from Heintz listed the amount Jenkins owed as
- including the cost of insurance bought by the bank when she re-
- neged on her promise to insure the car, Jenkins brought this suit
- against Heintz and his law firm under the Fair Debt Collection
- Practices Act, which forbids ``debt collector[s]'' to make false or
- misleading representations and to engage in various abusive and
- unfair practices. The District Court dismissed the suit, holding that
- the Act does not apply to lawyers engaging in litigation. The Court
- of Appeals disagreed and reversed.
- Held: The Act must be read to apply to lawyers engaged in consumer
- debt-collection litigation for two rather strong reasons. First, a
- lawyer who regularly tries to obtain payment of consumer debts
- through legal proceedings meets the Act's definition of ``debt col-
- lector'': one who ``regularly collects or attempts to collect, directly or
- indirectly, [consumer] debts owed . . . another,'' 15 U. S. C.
- 1692a(6). Second, although an earlier version of that definition
- expressly excluded ``any attorney-at-law collecting a debt as an
- attorney on behalf of and in the name of a client,'' Congress re-
- pealed this exemption in 1986 without creating a narrower, litiga-
- tion-related, exemption to fill the void. Heintz's arguments for
- nonetheless inferring the latter type of exemption-(1) that many of
- the Act's requirements, if applied directly to litigation activities, will
- create harmfully anomalous results that Congress could not have
- intended; (2) that a postenactment statement by one of the 1986
- repeal's sponsors demonstrates that, despite the removal of the
- earlier blanket exemption, the Act still does not apply to lawyers'
- litigating activities; and (3) that a nonbinding ``Commentary'' by the
- Federal Trade Commission's staff establishes that attorneys engaged
- in sending dunning letters and other traditional debt-collection
- activities are covered by the Act, while those whose practice is
- limited to legal activities are not-are unconvincing. Pp. 3-8.
- 25 F. 3d 536, affirmed.
- Breyer, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
-