Arciniega v. Medicredit, Inc.

Filing 51

ORDER denying 35 Motion for Summary Judgment. The parties are directed to CONFER and call in jointly on or before May 5, 2016, to Chambers to set a date for a Pretrial Conference. Should the parties wish to take Magistrate Judge Shaffer up on his offer to have them in for a settlement conference, they should communicate that to Chambers staff when they phone in and a referral will be issued. Signed by Judge John L. Kane on 04/27/16.(jhawk, )

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Judge John L. Kane
Civil Action No. 15-cv-00400-JLK
DAVID ARCINIEGA,
Plaintiff,
v.
MEDICREDIT, INC.,
Defendant.
________________________________________________________________________
ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
(Doc. 35)
Kane, J.
When reporting a disputed debt, a debt collector bears a legal duty to communicate that the
debt is disputed. In this case, defendant Medicredit reported a debt, but did not state that it was
disputed. The question presented is whether certain protestations Plaintiff made in a December
2014 phone call to Medicredit -- that he “knew” the debt was less than the $564 reported and that
he owed “less than $400” for the services charged – were sufficient to cast the debt as being “in
dispute” and trigger Medicredit’s duty to communicate it as such. For summary judgment
purposes, I find that they are. Medicredit’s attempts to discredit Mr. Arciniega’s statements to
the point that they fail, as a matter of law, to raise a triable issue of fact on that question are
unpersuasive. Medicredit contends the issue before the Court “is not whether Arciniega disputes
the debt, but rather whether he sufficiently communicated his dispute in a manner that
Medicredit understood the debt to be disputed.” Reply (Doc. 46) at 5-6 (citing Dixon v. RJM
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Acquisitions LLC, 2015 WL 729388 (Feb. 17, 2015)). As a panel of the Tenth Circuit pointed out
in reversing Dixon, this question is completely unamenable to resolution on a motion for
summary judgment. See Dixon v. RJM Acquisitions, LLC, --- Fed.Appx. ---, 2016 WL 624807
(10th Cir. Feb 17 2016). Accordingly,
Medicredit’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 35) is DENIED. The parties are directed
to CONFER and call in jointly on or before May 5, 2016, to Chambers to set a date for a Pretrial
Conference. Should the parties wish to take Magistrate Judge Shaffer up on his offer to have
them in for a settlement conference, they should communicate that to Chambers staff when they
phone in and a referral will be issued.

Dated April 27, 2016.

______________________________
JOHN L. KANE
SENIOR U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE

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