The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Monday Henson v. Santander Consumer USA, Inc that a company may collect debts that it purchased for its own account without triggering the statutory definition of “debt collector” provided under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The FDCPA defines debt collectors as “any person who regularly collects … debts owed or due … another.”
Petitioners argued that if Congress intended to exempt debt owners such as Santander it would have used the present partciple “owing.” Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing his first opinion for the court, opined that this argument “does not follow as a matter of good grammar, let alone ordinary meaning.”
