Gorsuch shows writing style in first high court opinion
WASHINGTON — Justice Neil Gorsuch got a cushy assignment for his first Supreme Court opinion — a unanimous ruling affirming a lower court — and used it to showcase both his writing style and much-touted devotion to a textual interpretation of the laws Congress passes.
“Disruptive dinnertime calls, downright deceit, and more besides drew Congress’s eye to the debt collection industry,” Gorsuch began in an 11-page opinion that said federal law targeting annoying and abusive debt collectors does not cover companies that buy debt and try to collect it.
“Everyone agrees that the term embraces the repo man — someone hired by a creditor to collect an outstanding debt. But what if you purchase a debt and then try to collect it for yourself — does that make you a ‘debt collector’ too?” Gorsuch wrote in his folksy opening paragraph.
“That’s the nub of the dispute now before us.”
The answer, Gorsuch said, is in the plain language of the statute, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Gorsuch wrote that the relevant part is the definition of “debt collector” as anyone who “regularly collects or attempts to collect … debts owed or due … another.”
Santander Consumer USA bought defaulted loans at a heavy discount and began to collect for itself.
Consumer groups and a number of states asked the Supreme Court to apply the law to Santander, because it was the techniques employed to collect debt that Congress was targeting.
But Gorsuch said if that was so, Congress could deal with it.