In Franco v. Allied Interstate LLC, No. 13 Civ. 4503,
2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47077 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 2, 2014), the named
plaintiff sued the defendant for sending him a debt collection
letter that implied he could face garnishment of his wages if he
did not pay his debt. He did not allege any actual damages, relying
instead on the FDCPA's statutory damages provision.
In response, the defendant made a Rule 68 offer of judgment of $1,501 plus
reasonable costs and attorneys' fees as allowed by the court,
one dollar more than the statutory maximum damages the plaintiff
could receive. The plaintiff refused the offer, and the defendant
moved to dismiss the complaint as moot.
This kind of case has come up before,
with varied results. This time, the Southern District of New
York found the claims moot. It acknowledged that offer of judgment
cases are controversial, but pointed out that the case before it
was more clear-cut than most. In particular, because the case
involved
