Wisconsin Court of Appeals Declines to Create 'Meaningful Involvement' Standard in Debt Collection Case

MILWAUKEE (LN) — In a per curiam opinion, the Court of Appeals for District II held that the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the Wisconsin Consumer Act (WCA) do not require attorneys to be "meaningfully involved" in the preparation of demand letters or complaints, nor do they prohibit demands for costs that remain legally available.

Jason Johnson sued ProHealth Care, ProHealth Care Moreland Surgery, CTR, and Dobberstein Law Firm, LLC, after being served with a small claims complaint for $1,304.86 in medical debt.

Johnson alleged that Dobberstein Law Firm, LLC, violated the FDCPA and the WCA by having an attorney with an extremely high workload prepare the complaint and by demanding legal fees that had not yet been awarded by a judge.

The circuit court for Waukesha County dismissed the complaint in its entirety. The Court of Appeals for District II upheld that decision in a per curiam opinion authored by Judges Neubauer, Gundrum, and Lazar.

Johnson argued that the attorneys were not "meaningfully involved" in the collection efforts, citing an allegation that Attorney Michael Hickey had 3,189 cases on his docket and filed numerous cases daily.

He contended that this lack of direct supervision made the communications misleading under 15 U.S.C. § 1692e(3) of the FDCPA and WIS. STAT. § 427.104(1)(k) of the Wisconsin Consumer Act.

The appellate court declined to recognize a new "meaningful involvement" claim under the FDCPA, noting that the statute’s plain language says nothing about an attorney’s involvement in debt collection efforts.

The court emphasized that it is the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s function to develop and clarify the law, not the court of appeals, which serves primarily as an error-correction body.

Regarding the state consumer law claim, the court pointed to its own published decision in Plaza Services LLC v. Burton, which rejected the same argument the previous year.

"We decline to recognize a new 'meaningful involvement' claim under § 1692e(3) of the FDCPA," the opinion stated, adding that the court of appeals’ law-developing role is secondary.

Johnson also challenged the defendants’ demand for "legal fees, including filing and service charges" to resolve the debt, arguing these costs had not yet been awarded.

The court found that Johnson failed to allege facts that would mislead an "unsophisticated consumer," the standard required to state a claim under 15 U.S.C. § 1692e(2)(A).

Unlike cases where debt collectors hide the components of a debt, the court noted that both the small claims complaint and Dobberstein’s communications explicitly attributed amounts beyond the principal balance to legal fees.

The court distinguished Johnson’s reliance on Shula v. Lawent, noting that in Shula, the debt collector demanded costs after the suit had been dismissed, whereas ProHealth still had the legal right to seek costs under Wisconsin law, where awards to prevailing parties are automatic.

Because the court affirmed the dismissal of the federal FDCPA claim, it also dismissed the parallel Wisconsin Consumer Act claim under WIS. STAT. § 427.104(1)(j), noting that the two statutes do not contain identical language and should not be construed the same way.

Johnson’s attorney did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday.

The opinion will not be published under Wisconsin Statute Rule 809.23(1)(b)5.