## Facts

- Josephine Rutyna, a 60-year-old widow and Social Security retiree, incurred a medical debt in late 1976 and early 1977 and believed insurance had paid it.
- A collection agency, Collection Accounts Terminal, Inc., sought to collect an alleged $56 debt owed to Cabrini Hospital Medical Group.
- Rutyna received a collection letter stating she was “unwilling to work out a friendly settlement” and threatening that a “field investigator” would investigate “in your neighborhood” and “personally call on your employer,” adding that immediate payment or an office visit would “spare you this embarrassment.”
- The letter was mailed in an envelope bearing the sender’s full corporate name, “Collection Accounts Terminal, Inc.,” in the return address.
- Rutyna alleged she became nervous and upset, fearing neighbors or others would learn of the debt and her medical issues.
- Rutyna sued under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and moved for partial summary judgment on liability based on the letter and envelope.

## Issues

1. Whether a collection letter threatening an investigation in the debtor’s neighborhood and contact with the debtor’s employer to cause “embarrassment” violates FDCPA prohibitions on harassment, false or misleading representations, and unfair collection methods.
2. Whether placing the debt collector’s corporate name on the envelope’s return address violates the FDCPA restriction on envelope markings that indicate debt collection.
3. Whether liability could be resolved as a matter of law on the undisputed content of the letter and envelope.

## Decision

- The court granted Rutyna’s motion for partial summary judgment on FDCPA liability.
- The court held the letter’s threats and “embarrassment” language violated the FDCPA, including provisions addressing harassment or abuse, false or misleading representations, and unfair or unconscionable means of collection.
- The court held the envelope violated the FDCPA because the corporate name on the return address indicated the sender was a debt collector.
- Damages were addressed in a later order.

## Legal Principles

- Conduct whose natural consequence is to harass, oppress, or abuse a person in connection with collecting a debt violates 15 U.S.C. § 1692d.
- False, deceptive, or misleading representations in debt collection, including threatening actions not intended or not legally permissible and suggesting improper third-party involvement, violate 15 U.S.C. § 1692e.
- Unfair or unconscionable collection methods violate 15 U.S.C. § 1692f.
- Envelope markings may not include language or symbols (beyond the collector’s address) that reveal debt collection; a name that identifies the sender as a “collection” business can violate § 1692f(8).
- The FDCPA is remedial and is construed to prevent abusive and humiliating collection tactics and to encourage private enforcement regardless of the debt’s small amount.

## Conclusion

The court found FDCPA liability as a matter of law where a debt collector’s letter threatened neighborhood investigation and employer contact to induce payment through embarrassment, and where the envelope’s return address used a corporate name that disclosed the sender’s debt-collection purpose.


Rutyna v. Collection Accounts Terminal, Inc., 478 F. Supp. 980 (N.D. Ill. 1979)