Gorsuch’s first opinion confirms exemption of debt buyers from Fair Debt Collection Practices Act

June 12, 2017, 10:24 PM

Good news... Justice Gorsuch is on the job and starting to produce.

From SCOTUS Blog:

This morning brought the first opinion from Justice Neil Gorsuch, explaining the decision of a unanimous court in Henson v. Santander Consumer USA that the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not apply to debt buyers – entities that buy and collect defaulted consumer debt. Perhaps this was not Gorsuch’s favorite case of the April argument calendar; it was the first argument in which he did not ask a question. But it does present the customary criteria for a first opinion: a unanimous decision in a case lacking great controversy. What makes the opinion more important than the decision it reflects is its first glimpse of Gorsuch’s style: Does it tell us anything useful about the approach he will take to drafting his opinions? Obviously one unanimous majority opinion in a straightforward statutory case is a small and unrepresentative sample, but at the risk of over-reading today’s offering, I would suggest that the two most salient features of this particular opinion are an effort to craft memorable prose – some may regard it as purple – and a commitment to taking seriously all of the arguments of the losing party.

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Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown