Texas Consumer Reaches Confidential Settlement With Zombie Debt Buyer After Scoring $8.1M Jury Verdict In Suit Alleging Hostile Phone Manners

In Dallas, Texas, Workbench reports:

• At courthouses across the United States, it has become increasingly common during the economic downturn for lawsuits to be filed against consumers to collect old debts. Lawyers who specialize in the practice are filing thousands of suits on behalf of large firms that have acquired debts from other companies. Although most people don't fight the suits and lose them by default, a Dallas woman bucked the trend last October.

• Chrystal A. Snow challenged the validity of a $9,000 debt in a Dallas County Court-at-Law and countersued the debt collector for making improper phone calls, her attorney Ross Teter said. In a case that has received no media attention, Snow won her suit against Midland Funding LLC(1) and the jury hearing the case awarded her $8.1 million -- $250 for actual damages, $100,000 for mental anguish and $8 million in punitive damages, he said.

• "The jury made a finding she did not owe the debt," Teter said in a phone interview. "We argued that they violated the Texas Fair Debt Collection Act by making harassing phone calls and the jury agreed." [...] Snow, who did not return requests for comment, has [subsequently] reached a confidential settlement with Midland, her attorney Teter said.

For more, see Woman Sues Debt Collector, Wins $8.1 Million.

(1) According to the story, Midland Funding is a subsidiary of Encore Capital Group, a company whose primary business is the acquisition and collection of "charged-off consumer receivable portfolios," according to its 2009 annual report filed with the Securites and Exchange Commission. "We acquire receivable portfolios at deep discounts from their face values," the annual report states. "[W]e have invested approximately $1.4 billion to acquire 28.8 million consumer accounts with a face value of approximately $43.8 billion."