Deconstructing the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act: Obduskey Says Lawyers Conducting Nonjudicial Foreclosure Are Not "Debt Collectors" • NACTT Academy

Deconstructing the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act: Obduskey Says Lawyers Conducting Nonjudicial Foreclosure Are Not “Debt Collectors”

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

Introduction

On March 20, 2019, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP1 that actions required by state law in a nonjudicial foreclosure are not regulated by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).2 The decision resolved a split in the circuits. In addition to the Tenth Circuit (affirmed by Obduskey), the Ninth had also concluded that the FDCPA does not apply to nonjudicial foreclosure.

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