Henson v. Santander Consumer USA: What’s Left for Debtors and Trustees to Say to a Repo Man Under the FDCPA?

By Lawrence R. Ahern III, Brown & Ahern (Nashville, TN)

On June 12, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch issued his first decision for the United States Supreme Court in an opinion of considerable interest to debtors and trustee. In Henson v. Santander Consumer USA, Inc.,1 he authored a unanimous opinion in which the Court ruled that purchasing a defaulted debt and then collecting it does not automatically make the new owner a "debt collector" as defined by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).2

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