| FINANCIAL SERVICES LITIGATION, FEDERAL FAIR
DEBT COLLETIONS PRACTICES ACT AND WEST
VIRGINIA CONSUMER AND CREDIT PROTECTION ACT DEFENSE
Increasingly, creditors seeking merely to collect their justly owed debts are faced with counterclaims alleging violations of either the federal Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, or in West Virginia, the Consumer and Credit Protection Act, or both. Other statutes used to combat creditors’ collection efforts include the federal Truth In Lending Act, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and the Civil Rights Act.
Both the federal and state statutes are highly complex, and contain severe penalties for found violations, including awards of attorneys’ fees. Both the federal and state statutes are typically asserted by debtors, not to avenge a creditor’s wrong, but to avoid paying a creditor’s justly owed debt, and on occasion, to unjustly enrich the debtor and his attorneys. The West Virginia state statute is particularly punitive, and a favorite tool of West Virginia debtors.
Our trial attorneys pride themselves on their ability to present an aggressive defense in response to debtor counterclaims under the federal and state statutes. Our goal is to secure our clients’ recovery, while also defeating the counterclaim. We do not subscribe to a strategy of litigating to a point where both sides “walk away”, as this serves only the debtors’ interests. Rather, we work hard, and efficiently, to vindicate our clients’ rights, securing for them monies owed.
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