Cooper v. Pressler & Pressler, LLP

• Decision Date: 17 December 2012
• Docket Number: Civil No. 12–0679 (NLH/KMW).
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey
• Parties: Chanda COOPER, Plaintiff, v. PRESSLER & PRESSLER, LLP, et al., Defendants.

912 F.Supp.2d 178

Chanda COOPER, Plaintiff,

v.PRESSLER & PRESSLER, LLP, et al., Defendants.

Civil No. 12–0679 (NLH/KMW).

United States District Court, D. New Jersey.

Dec. 17, 2012.

Chanda Cooper, Pennsauken, NJ, pro se.

Clement J. Farley, Esq., McCarter & English, LLP, Newark, NJ, for Defendant Capital One Bank (USA), N.A.

OPINION

HILLMAN, District Judge.

This matter comes before the Court by way of Defendant Capital One Bank (USA), N.A.'s motion [Doc. No. 5] to dismiss Plaintiff's complaint pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and 12(b)(6), for failure to state a claim. The Court has considered the parties' submissions and decides this matter pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 78.

For the reasons expressed below, Defendant's motion to dismiss is granted.

I. JURISDICTION

In this case, Plaintiff asserts claims pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (hereinafter, “FCRA”), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq., and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (hereinafter, “FDCPA”), 15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq., along with several New Jersey state law claims. The Court exercises jurisdiction over Plaintiff's federal law claims under FCRA and FDCPA pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331. See also15 U.S.C. §§ 1681p, 1692k(d) (allowing FCRA and FDCPA claims to “be brought in any appropriate United States district court without regard to the amount in controversy, ...”). The Court may exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff's state law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367.

II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff submitted the complaint in this action on February 3, 2012, and the complaint was filed on February 8, 2012 after the Court granted Plaintiff's application to proceed in forma pauperis pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915. Although Plaintiff named thirteen separate Defendants in the caption of the complaint,¹ the body of Plaintiff's complaint only purports to bring suit against Defendants Pressler & Pressler, LLP, Capital One Bank (USA), N.A. (hereinafter, “Capital One”), and Camden County Special Court. As indicated by a September 7, 2011 letter ² sent to Plaintiff by Defendant Pressler & Pressler, LLP, it appears that in early August of 2008 Defendant Capital One issued a MasterCard credit card to Plaintiff and that Plaintiff made payments on this credit card through approximately September 9, 2008. (Ex. A–1 to Pl.'s Compl. [Doc. No. 1] 1.) However, Plaintiff's credit card account with Defendant Capital One was apparently “charged off” ³ on April 21, 2009. ( Id.)

Plaintiff's complaint sets forth three distinct factual allegations. With respect to Defendants Camden County Special Court and Pressler & Pressler, LLP, Plaintiff alleges that in September of 2010 these Defendants and their agents “initiated a hard pull of Plaintiff's credit report from Equifax without [a] permissible purpose, thereby reducing [Plaintiff's] credit score.” (Pl.'s Compl. [Doc. No. 1] ¶ 8.) Plaintiff further contends that in November of 2009 Defendants Capital One and Pressler & Pressler, LLP “initiated a soft pull of Plaintiff's credit report from Trans Union, Equifax and Experian without [a] permissible purpose.” ( Id. ¶ 9.) Plaintiff alleges that “the illegal actions of Defendants [Capital One], Pressler & Pressler, LLP and its agents, [and] Camden County Special Court ... harmed the Plaintiff resulting in credit denials, credit delays, inability to apply for credit, financial loss, loss of use of funds, mental anguish, humiliation, a loss of reputation, and expenditures for attorney's fees and costs.” ⁴ ( Id. ¶ 10.)

Based on these factual allegations, Plaintiff's complaint asserts eight counts including counts for both willful and negligent non-compliance with FCRA and violations of FDCPA, as well as state law causes of action for reckless and wanton conduct, invasion of privacy—false light, defamation, intentional misrepresentation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. ( See id. ¶¶ 11–40.) Summonses were issued with respect to all Defendants on February 8, 2012. ( See Summonses [Doc. No. 3]; see also Summonses Returned Unexecuted [Doc. No. 6].) On February 24, 2012, Defendant Capital One filed an application with the Clerk of Court seeking an extension of time to answer or otherwise respond to Plaintiff's complaint. After obtaining the extension, Capital One filed the present motion to dismiss Plaintiff's complaint.

III. DISCUSSION

At this time, Defendant Capital One moves for the dismissal of Plaintiff's complaint pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). At the outset, Capital One argues that Plaintiff's complaint fails to state a claim under eitherFCRA or FDCPA, and therefore, these causes of action must be dismissed. Upon the dismissal of Plaintiff's federal law claims, Capital One argues, the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the remaining state law causes of action because she cannot establish diversity of citizenship jurisdiction in this case. Thus, according to Capital One, the remainder of Plaintiff's complaint must be dismissed as well.

The Court first considers whether Plaintiff has stated a claim under the FDCPA and the FCRA pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) before turning to the issue of exercising supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff's state law claims. While Plaintiff did not file opposition to Defendant's motion, “the Court must address unopposed motions to dismiss a complaint on the merits.” Estate of Casella v. Hartford Life Ins. Co., No. 09–2306, 2009 WL 2488054, at *2 (D.N.J. Aug. 11, 2009) (citing Stackhouse v. Mazurkiewicz, 951 F.2d 29, 30 (3d Cir.1991)). Thus, in considering Defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), the Court must accept all well-pleaded allegations in the complaint as true and view them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Evancho v. Fisher, 423 F.3d 347, 350 (3d Cir.2005). It is well settled that a pleading is sufficient if it contains “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2).

A district court, in weighing a motion to dismiss, asks “ ‘not whether a plaintiff will ultimately prevail but whether the claimant is entitled to offer evidence to support the claims[.]’ ” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 563 n. 8, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) (quoting Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974)); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1953, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (“Our decision in Twombly expounded the pleading standard for ‘all civil actions[.]’ ”) (citation omitted). First, under the Twombly/Iqbal standard, a district court “must accept all of the complaint's well-pleaded facts as true, but may disregard any legal conclusions.” Fowler v. UPMC Shadyside, 578 F.3d 203, 210–11 (3d Cir.2009) (citing Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949).

Second, a district court “must then determine whether the facts alleged in the complaint are sufficient to show that the plaintiff has a ‘plausible claim for relief.’ ” Fowler, 578 F.3d at 211 (citing Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950). “[A] complaint must do more than allege the plaintiff's entitlement to relief.” Fowler, 578 F.3d at 211;see also Phillips v. County of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 234 (3d Cir.2008) (“The Supreme Court's Twombly formulation of the pleading standard can be summed up thus: ‘stating ... a claim requires a complaint with enough factual matter (taken as true) to suggest’ the required element. This ‘does not impose a probability requirement at the pleading stage,’ but instead ‘simply calls for enough facts to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of’ the necessary element.”) (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955). “The defendant bears the burden of showing that no claim has been presented.” Hedges v. U.S., 404 F.3d 744, 750 (3d Cir.2005). Moreover, in ruling on the present motion, the Court “must construe [Plaintiff's] complaint liberally because [she] is proceeding pro se.” Huertas v. Galaxy Asset Mgmt., 641 F.3d 28, 32 (3d Cir.2011) (citing Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 167 L.Ed.2d 1081 (2007)).

IV. ANALYSIS

As set forth supra, Capital One primarily argues that Plaintiff has failed to state a claim under either FCRA or FDCPA and that the claims asserted in Counts One, Two and Three of the complaint must be dismissed with prejudice. Capital One further argues that once these federal claims are dismissed the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff's remaining state law claims because she cannot establish complete diversity of citizenship between the parties and cannot satisfy the amount in controversy requirement set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 1332. Finally, Capital One argues that even assuming that the Court has jurisdiction over Plaintiff's state law claims, these causes of action must also be dismissed because Plaintiff fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. The Court addresses these arguments in turn beginning the with FDCPA and FCRA.

A. Fair Debt Collection Practices Act

Count Three of Plaintiff's complaint asserts a claim under FDCPA, which was enacted “to eliminate abusive debt collection practices which contribute to the number of personal bankruptcies, to marital instability, to the loss of jobs, and to invasions of individual privacy.” Wilson v. Quadramed Corp., 225 F.3d 350, 354 (3d Cir.2000) (citations and internal quotations omitted). As Congress has explained, “the purpose of the Act was not only to eliminate abusive debt collection practices, but also to ‘insure that those debt collectors who refrain from using abusive debt collection practices are not competitively disadvantaged.’ ” Lesher v. Law Offices of Mitchell N. Kay, PC, 650 F.3d 993, 996 (3d Cir.2011) (citing 15 U.S.C. § 1692(e)). In light of the inadequacy of the existing...