Senftle v. Landau, No. CIV PJM 04-2644.

• Decision Date: 11 August 2005
• Docket Number: No. CIV PJM 04-2644.
• Parties: Frank P. SENFTLE, Plaintiff v. Lee E. LANDAU, et. al, Defendant
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

390 F.Supp.2d 463

Frank P. SENFTLE, Plaintiff v. Lee E. LANDAU, et. al, Defendant

No. CIV PJM 04-2644.

United States District Court, D. Maryland.

August 11, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Frank P. Senftle, Pro Se, for Plaintiffs.

David J Kaminow, Rockville, for Defendants.

OPINION

MESSITTE, District Judge.

I.

Frank P. Senftle has filed a pro se Complaint against Lee E. Landau and Landau and Landau, P.A., claiming violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692, et seq. (1977) ("FDCPA"). Defendants have filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, which Senftle opposes. Having considered the pleadings, the Court GRANTS Defendants' Motion.

II.

On April 28, 1997, Senftle filed an application for membership in the Hughes Aircraft Employees Federal Credit Union ("HAEFCU"), which supplied him with a MasterCard Gold credit card. By the April 14, 2001 closing date, Senftle owed $26,948.45 on his account which was past due. Senftle's account was thus forwarded to MCT Group ("MCT"), a California partnership in the business of debt collection.

A partner of the MCT Group, Francis M. Censullo, has stated under oath that MCT sent Senftle a form letter on or about June 2001¹ containing the written notice required by § 1692g(a) of the FDCPA.² He further avers under oath that Senftle's account information was incorporated into the form letter when mailed. In his pleadings, Senftle alleges that he never received the June 2001 letter, but has failed to deny its receipt under oath-even after the Court cautioned him that on summary judgment he was obliged to produce an affidavit denying receipt.³

On or about October 1, 2001, MCT mailed Senftle a second letter, which he admits he received.⁴ This time Senftle was instructed to respond within five (5) days or MCT would "assume from [his] silence that [he does] not intend to pay his debt voluntarily." On October 5, 2001, Senftle responded in writing, requesting that MCT validate his debt. MCT, however, did not do so.

Instead it forwarded the case to Landau & Landau, P.A., the entity through which Lee E. Landau conducts his law practice.

Soon after, Landau filed suit against Senftle in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Maryland on behalf of HAEFCU, seeking $26,948.45, plus interest, attorney's fees, and costs. Senftle responded pro se, with a Motion for More Definite Statement. The Circuit Court denied the Motion, and ordered Senftle to file his answer within 15 days. Rather than answering, Senftle filed yet another Motion for More Definite Statement. Landau in turn filed a Motion for Judgment by Default, which Senftle challenged by filing a Motion to Strike Plaintiff's Affidavit and Motion to Dismiss and a Notice of Supplemental Filing. The Circuit Court, however, granted Landau's Motion for Judgment by Default, entering judgment against Senftle in the amount of $39,164.18, plus interest, and $4,042.27 in attorney's fees.

Senftle then filed a Motion to Set Aside Judgment in light of alleged violations of the FDCPA, which Landau opposed asserting that, "assuming arguendo that there was a violation of the FDCPA ... [Senftle] has failed to establish that his remedy for the alleged violation would be to have the judgment entered against him ... vacated." The Circuit Court denied Senftle's Motion to Set Aside Judgment. That Judgment is apparently final.

Senftle then filed the instant Complaint against Defendants asserting four violations of the FDCPA. First, he says, "Defendants filed a debt collection law suit against the Plaintiff and willfully and intentionally failed to give him the mandatory notice of consumer rights contained under ... 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(a), i.e., the Defendants did not give the Plaintiff the required validation notice ... within five days of their initial debt collection communication...." Second, he "has been denied notice of his federally mandated consumer right to dispute the alleged debt under 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(b) and the opportunity to exercise [this] right." Third, "Defendants... initial debt collection communication with Plaintiff, i.e., [the] debt collection law suit, and their subsequent communications with the Plaintiff also fail to disclose the fact that the Defendants are debt collectors attempting to collect a debt ... [, a] violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1692e(11)." Fourth, "Defendants refused to verify the alleged debt as requested by the Plaintiff and pushed on with their debt collection litigation against him, ... [a violation] of 15 U.S.C. § 1692g(b)."

Senftle seeks statutory damages and costs, as well as an order staying the execution of the Circuit Court judgment until the conclusion of this suit.

III.

Before all else, the Court considers whether it has jurisdiction to hear this case.

Under the so-called Rooker-Feldman doctrine⁵, lower federal courts generally do not have subject-matter jurisdiction to review state-court decisions by a state's highest court or its lower courts. Shooting Point, L.L.C. v. W.M. Cumming, 368 F.3d 379, 383-84 (4th Cir.2004) (quoting Plyler v. Moore, 129 F.3d 728, 731 (4th Cir.1997) and citing D.C. Ct. of App. v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 482-86, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923)); Jordahl, 122 F.3d at 199.⁶ The doctrine bars a party losing in state court from seeking what in substance would be appellate review of a state judgment in lower federal court, American Reliable Insurance Co. v. Stillwell, 336 F.3d 311 (4th Cir.2003) (quoting Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S. 997, 1005-06, 114 S.Ct. 2647, 129 L.Ed.2d 775 (1994)), based on the losing party's claim that the state judgment itself violates federal rights. Brown & Root, Inc. v. Breckenridge, 211 F.3d 194, 199 (4th Cir.2000); see Johnson, 512 U.S. at 1005-06, 114 S.Ct. 2647. This is chiefly because 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a) reserves federal jurisdiction to review state court decisions to the Supreme Court. Ernst, 108 F.3d at 491.

Recently, the United States Supreme Court clarified the contours of Rooker-Feldman:

The Rooker-Feldman doctrine ... is confined to cases of the kind from which the doctrine acquired its name: cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments. Rooker-Feldman does not otherwise override or supplant preclusion doctrine or augment the circumscribed doctrines that allow federal courts to stay or dismiss proceedings in deference to state-court actions. (emphasis added).

Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Ind. Corp., ___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 1517, 1521-22, 161 L.Ed.2d 454 (2005); see also Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U.S 997, 1005-06, 114 S.Ct. 2647, 129 L.Ed.2d 775 (1994).

The pivotal inquiry in the present case is "whether the federal plaintiff seeks to set aside a state court judgment or whether he is, in fact, presenting an independent claim." Long v. Shorebank Development Corporation, 182 F.3d 548, 555 (7th Cir.1999).

Rooker-Feldman applies where the injury alleged resulted from the state court judgment itself, Long, 182 F.3d at 555, because in granting the federal plaintiff the relief sought, a federal court must determine that "the state court judgment was erroneously entered or must take action that would render the judgment ineffectual," thereby passing on the merits of that state court decision. See Jordahl, 122 F.3d at 202 (internal punctuation omitted) (quoting Ernst v. Child and Youth Servs., 108 F.3d 486, 491 (3d Cir.1997)).

On the other hand, Rooker-Feldman is inapplicable where the alleged injury is distinct from the state court judgment, where a federal plaintiff raises an independent claim, not "inextricably intertwined" with that state judgment.⁷ Long, 182 F.3d at 555; Centres, Inc. v. Town of Brookfield, 148 F.3d 699, 701-02 (7th Cir.1998); Exxon Mobil Corp., 125 S.Ct. at 1521-22. Rooker-Feldman does not strip lower federal courts of subject-matter jurisdiction simply because a party attempts to litigate in federal court a matter previously litigated in state court. See Exxon Mobil Corp., 125 S.Ct. at 1527. If a federal plaintiff "presents some independent claim, albeit one that denies a legal conclusion that a state court has reached in a case to which he was a party, then there is jurisdiction and state law determines whether the defendant prevails under principles of preclusion." Id. (quoting GASH Assocs. v. Village of Rosemont, 995 F.2d 726, 728 (7th Cir.1993)); accord Noel v. Hall, 341 F.3d 1148, 1163-64 (9th Cir.2003). Hence where a federal plaintiff alleges an independent claim that the state court failed to remedy, a federal court may consider that claim. Long, 182 F.3d at 555; cf. American Reliable Insurance Co., 336 F.3d at 317-18.

Here Senftle's alleges four violations of the FDCPA, all of which pertain to the manner in which Landau collected Senftle's debt, not the validity of the underlying debt. That, in the Court's view, suffices to permit the claims to go forward in this Court. See Azar v. Hayter, 874 F.Supp. 1314 (N.D.Fla.1995); Long, 182 F.3d at 554. A "FDCPA claim has nothing to do with whether the underlying debt is valid," Green v. Ford Motor Credit Co., 152 Md.App. 32 58-60, 828 A.2d 821, 837-38 (2003) (emphasis in original), when it concerns the method of collection.⁸ When a FDCPA claim concerns collection activities, a FDCPA claim does not arise out of the transaction creating the debt. Azar, 874 F.Supp. 1317-18. Indeed, even if the Circuit Court correctly determined that the underlying debt was valid, Maryland rules of res judicata would not preclude Senftle from later seeking damages against creditors for illegally collecting that debt. Cf. Green, 152 Md.App. at 58-60, 828 A.2d at 837-38 (stating that a FDCPA claim concerning the method of collecting debt does not arise out of the transaction creating that debt)....