You want me to sue? Well if you insist...

My sunflower story seemed to go over well, so here is another lawyer story I hope you enjoy (and I won't spoil it with a TL;DR at the top - lesson learned). None of the following is legal advice, and I am not your lawyer. On to the story!

A friend from school reached out to ask for help dealing with an ambulance company. Her parent had passed away in an ambulance while traveling between a nursing home and a hospital. The ambulance company sent friend a bill which she could not afford to pay, and was threatening to send the bill to collectors.

"Not a problem friend! Your parent's estate is responsible for this bill, you don't have a personal obligation to pay it, so they can't send it to collections in your name. Let me just mail a short letter, and they should stop bothering you."

I typed a very polite letter ("This person has legal representation, please cease any and all shenanigans") and thought that was the end of this nonsense. Fast forward a few weeks when friend sent a picture of another bill. Because the law is so cut and dry on debt collection I assumed the ambulance company had some computer or human error which caused another letter to be sent.

"No worries friend, I bet someone messed up. Let me give them a call real quick and figure it out."

imagine a super cool montage of me working through a really long automated phone tree before talking to an actual human

"Hey, I'm friend's lawyer. I sent a letter asking you to stop sending her collections notices. She got another notice yesterday, so I just wanted to figure out why and how to make sure these letters stop."

Surely this will be a quick call and we can all have a laugh about whatever error occurred I think.

"We will stop sending her bills when she pays."

"Umm... but thats pretty illegal for like a lot of reasons. I can think of three right off the top of my head. So instead of me getting all riled up and starting a lawsuit, can you just be cool? Pretty please?"

"Its not illegal. Try to sue us if you want our lawyers to explain it to you."

She made me say the phrase that I hate more than any other phrase IN THE WORLD.

"May I speak with your manager please?"

"Nope, I am the manager, and also more familiar with the FDCPA than you. What we are doing is perfectly legal. Tell your friend to pay."

So the FDCPA (federal debt collection practices act) sets out certain rules for what debt collectors can or cannot do. But some states, like TX (shocking I know) has stronger rules which protect debtors. I didn't know whether or not ambulance company was violating any FDCPA things but I knew FOR SURE (and when a good lawyer says for sure that means one hundred percent for sure) they were violating TDCPA.

"Telling me I don't know what I'm doing is rude. Hassling friend after parent passed away is shockingly rude. So last chance before I hang up to angry type a lawsuit and angry file it. You don't want me to sue on this because I will win."

"Please do and we will see you in court, have a nice day!"

click. She hung up on me. Oh man I was pissed. Easily in the top ten of pissed in a professional context.

The whole conversation took about ten minutes. I have a fairly high tolerance for abrasive people (most people don't look forward to talking with a lawyer, I get it). Still, sending collection notices to the wrong person AFTER that person buried a parent AND telling me I'm a bad lawyer was pretty mind blowing.

I literally started working on this complaint as soon as I hung up. Because if I threaten to sue and you ASK me follow through, my hands are tied.

After I filed and the company was served (presumably followed by an actual lawyer reading the complaint and thinking 'oh wow we fucked up here'). A very apologetic lawyer called, and we reached an agreement to settle which including an apology to friend.