Davis v. Hutchins
| Citation | 321 F.3d 641 |
| Decision Date | 26 February 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 01-4189.,01-4189. |
| Parties | Sidney DAVIS, III, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Charles T. HUTCHINS, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
David J. Phillipps (Argued), Gomolinski & Philipps, Hickory Hills, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Charles T. Hutchins (Argued), Farmingdale, NJ, for Defendant-Appellant.
Before BAUER, POSNER, and KANNE, Circuit Judges.
A default judgment was entered against Charles T. Hutchins, a New Jersey attorney proceeding pro se. The judgment awarded Sidney Davis, III, individual damages and attorney's fees and also awarded class-action damages. On appeal, we vacate the award of class-action damages and affirm the judgment as modified.
Charles T. Hutchins has been licensed to practice law in the State of New Jersey since 1988. From February 2000 through January 2002, he served as in-house counsel to Goldman & Company. According to Hutchins, Goldman is a debt collection organization that specializes in seeking restitution for its customers from individuals who make payment with nonsufficient-fund-checks.
In August 2000, a form debt-collection letter was sent to Davis, a Chicago, Illinois resident. The letter reads as follows:
I have been retained by the above-referenced client to assess the possibility of taking legal action against you. This matter involves the issuance of fraudulent checks. Issuance of fraudulent checks is a violation of criminal state statute. The law provides my client with certain legal remedies to enforce their claim. They may file a criminal complaint with local authorities seeking criminal charges against you. If you are prosecuted and convicted, you may have a permanent criminal record. If my client decides to sue civilly, you may receive a summons at home or work that may require a court appearance. Losing the lawsuit may allow the court to order garnishments of your wages, attachment of bank accounts and seizure of property.
This matter was previously placed with a collection agency that made numerous unsuccessful efforts at a resolution. This is a serious matter involving possible violation of state law and will be your last opportunity for amicable resolution. THE CHOICE IS YOURS. You can avoid the possibility of the aforementioned criminal and/or civil action only by paying the total amount due within 10 days.
Some months thereafter, Davis filed a class-action complaint against Hutchins,1 alleging that he had violated various sections of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA"), 15 U.S.C. § 1692 et seq. (2003), including § 1692e(3) (), § 1692e(5) (), § 1692e(11) (), and § 1692g ().
In the complaint, Davis defined the proposed class as all persons in Illinois from whom Hutchins attempted to collect a debt allegedly owed to Burlington Coat Factory, within one year before the filing of the complaint. As the only named plaintiff in the complaint, Davis sought to be appointed as representative of the class, which he alleged consisted of more than 30 persons.
Hutchins was served with the complaint on August 6, 2001. He then chose to represent himself in this matter, and the following debacle ensued.
Hutchins responded to the complaint by mailing a document entitled "Brief in Support of Motion to Dismiss" to the clerk of the district court in Chicago with a copy to counsel for Davis. No motion to dismiss accompanied the brief, and the brief exceeded the page limit allowed by the Local Rules of the district court. Hutchins did not send a notice of presentment, also as required by the Local Rules. Further, on the cover letter that Hutchins sent to the clerk (but not on his brief) he listed the wrong case number. As a result, on August 27, the district-court clerk misfiled the brief, and the filing did not show up on the docket for this case. To add to these transgressions, Hutchins also failed to enter an appearance.
On September 21, 2001, counsel for Davis contacted Hutchins by fax to inform him of the several deficiencies, including the fact that the court's docket did not reflect that Hutchins had filed anything. Davis's attorney indicated that he would move for a default if Hutchins did not file a proper response to the complaint.
In turn, Hutchins made multiple calls to the district court case manager and the trial court's courtroom deputy clerk regarding the status of his "motion." At some point during these calls Hutchins realized that he had put the wrong case number on the cover letter and suggested to the case manager that his brief might be found under that wrong number.
On September 25, the courtroom deputy clerk called Hutchins to inform him that his brief had been located, but that the notice of presentment was missing and the page limit had been exceeded. She told him that she would return the documents to him and he could make corrections. During this call, she also informed Hutchins that an initial status hearing on the case had been set for October 4. Hutchins asked her if he needed to appear telephonically at the October 4 status conference. According to Hutchins, she informed him that if he returned the corrected documents there would be no need to appear, and further, that the court generally did not require personal appearances for a motion to dismiss.
On September 28, Davis's attorney faxed Hutchins a document-production request, an interrogatory, and a request that Hutchins contact him for a discovery conference. Hutchins responded to the requests by faxing the cover sheet back to Davis's attorney with a handwritten notation stating, "You guys are pretty funny!" with a smiley face drawn after the statement. This was the only response Hutchins ever made to the discovery requests.
Three days later, on October 1, Davis filed a motion for default. The motion for default was sent to Hutchins with a notice that it would be presented on October 4 at the previously scheduled status hearing.
Hutchins returned his "Brief in Support of Motion to Dismiss" to the court on October 2, and noticed it for hearing on October 10. He also filed a motion to accept a brief in excess of the page limit. Again, however, he failed to file an actual motion to dismiss or enter an appearance.
On the morning of October 4, Davis, by his counsel, appeared before the district court for the status hearing and to present his motion for default. Hutchins failed to show. The courtroom deputy clerk explained at the beginning of the hearing that Hutchins's original brief had been misfiled and contained certain errors, but that the problems appeared to be corrected.
Davis's attorney, however, argued that default was still appropriate based on the fact that Hutchins had still not filed an appearance, that he had not filed a proper response to the complaint, and that he had responded to counsel's discovery requests with a flippant refusal to participate in discovery. The district judge ordered default entered against Hutchins and thereafter set November 1 as the date for the damage prove-up.
Though default had been entered, the hearing for Hutchins's motion to dismiss remained on the court's docket for October 10. On that day, Davis's attorney appeared to oppose the motion, but once again Hutchins failed to show. Consequently, the district court struck Hutchins's motion for want of prosecution. Apparently also on October 10, the clerk's office received by mail Hutchins's motion for reconsideration of the court's default order, which he noticed for hearing on October 17.
On October 17, Hutchins actually appeared in court to argue his motion to reconsider the default entry. The judge, however, did not find satisfactory his explanations for why he still had not filed an appearance, why he failed to comply with the local rules on filing motions, why he refused to participate in discovery, and why he failed to appear at either the October 4 or October 10 hearings. Not surprisingly, the motion to reconsider was denied.
On October 23, Davis filed a brief in support of his damages claim. Davis sought actual damages of $1000, statutory damages of $1000, and attorney's fees of roughly $18,000. On behalf of the class, Davis sought a $500,000 statutory damage award.
Hutchins did not file a brief opposing the damages claim. He did file a brief on October 29 in opposition to class certification, in which he argued that Davis could not satisfy the numerosity requirement or show that his claim was typical to the proposed class. He did, however, attach an affidavit to the brief that asserted that his salary at Goldman was $52,000 per year, that he had over $100,000 in law-school loans, and $15,000 in unsecured debt, and therefore had no ability to satisfy Davis's requested judgment.
On November 1, 2001, the date set for the original damage prove-up hearing, Hutchins again failed to attend. The district court, however, decided not to determine damages at that time because Hutchins had (prematurely) filed an appeal with this Court. The district court stated that it would rather wait until we dismissed the premature appeal before ruling on damages. Therefore, the district court reset the damage prove-up hearing for November 21. At our behest, Hutchins filed a motion for voluntary dismissal, and we dismissed the appeal on November 8.
On November 21, the district court held the hearing for damage prove-up. Once again, Hutchins failed to appear. The...
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