As a matter of constitutional law, the Seventh Circuit reduced punitive damages from $3 million to $582,000 when the jury had awarded the debtor $582,000 in compensatory damages as a consequence of the mortgage servicer’s “reprehensible conduct” and its “obstinate refusal” to correct its mistakes.
The story told by Circuit Judge Amy J. St. Eve in her November 27 opinion would be amusing if it did not depict horrors inflicted on a debtor about to lose her home even though she was current on the mortgage.
The debtor had filed a chapter 13 petition and dutifully cured arrears on her $135,000 home mortgage over the life of her 42-month plan. The servicer did not even object after receiving notice under Bankruptcy Rule 3002.1 stating that the debtor had cured the arrears.
The nightmare for the debtor began when the servicer received the discharge but erroneously marked the file to say that the case had been dismissed. The mistake was compounded because the servicer failed to credit two of her monthly payments.
You know what happens next. The servicer deluges the debtor with threatening letters, demands thousands of dollars not owing, and incurs expenses (which it charges to the debtor) incurred in initiating foreclosure. Along the way, the debtor and her lawyers on multiple occasions sent hundreds of pages of documents to the servicer showing that the mortgage was current.
The servicer’s incompetence was shown by statements that varied from month to month by thousands of dollars. One inaccurate statement even showed that the debtor was $2,800 ahead in mortgage payments.
The lender halted foreclosure proceedings when the debtor filed suit in federal district court. The debtor asserted claims for breach of contract and for violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, and the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. The Illinois statute was the only claim under which the debtor was entitled to punitive damages.
After trial, the jury awarded the debtor $500,000 in compensatory damages for her breach-of-contract claims and claims under the FDCPA and the RESPA. On the Illinois CFDBPA claims, the jury gave her $82,000 in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages. The jury may have been persuaded to impose large punitive damages because the servicer was already operating under a consent decree for shoddy servicing.
The damage award totaled $3,582,000. The district court affirmed, but the servicer appealed the punitive damages award to the Seventh Circuit.
Judge St. Eve said that “jury was well within its rights to punish” the servicer, but “the award is excessive.”
Anyone on either side of a case involving an egregious violation of the discharge injunction or the automatic stay should read the opinion in full text. Judge St. Eve meticulously analyzes constitutional principles governing the award of punitive damages. Most prominently, she parses leading cases that propound flexible formulas to divine the limits on punitive damages.
For the case at hand, Judge St. Eve decided that $582,000 was the “maximum permissible punitive damages award.” She concluded that a 1:1 ratio between the total compensatory and punitive damages was “consistent with Supreme Court guidance.” Likewise, 7:1 was a similarly permissible ratio between $582,000 and the $82,000 award under the Illinois statute.
Judge St. Eve said that $582,000 punished the servicer for its “atrocious recordkeeping” without “equating its indifference to intentional malice.”
The servicer sought a new trial, given the disallowance of the jury’s punitive damage award. Judge St. Eve said that the servicer was not entitled to a new trial, because the constitutional limit on punitive damages is a question of law not within the purview of a jury. Therefore, she said, the “court is empowered to decide the maximum permissible amount without offering a new trial.
As a matter of constitutional law, the Seventh Circuit reduced punitive damages from $3 million to $582,000 when the jury had awarded the debtor $582,000 in compensatory damages as a consequence of the mortgage servicer’s “reprehensible conduct” and its “obstinate refusal” to correct its mistakes.
The story told by Circuit Judge Amy J. St. Eve in her November 27 opinion would be amusing if it did not depict horrors inflicted on a debtor about to lose her home even though she was current on the mortgage.
The debtor had filed a chapter 13 petition and dutifully cured arrears on her $135,000 home mortgage over the life of her 42-month plan. The servicer did not even object after receiving notice under Bankruptcy Rule 3002.1 stating that the debtor had cured the arrears.
The nightmare for the debtor began when the servicer received the discharge but erroneously marked the file to say that the case had been dismissed. The mistake was compounded because the servicer failed to credit two of her monthly payments.
You know what happens next. The servicer deluges the debtor with threatening letters, demands thousands of dollars not owing, and incurs expenses (which it charges to the debtor) incurred in initiating foreclosure. Along the way, the debtor and her lawyers on multiple occasions sent hundreds of pages of documents to the servicer showing that the mortgage was current.