REFinBlog

Editor: David Reiss
Cornell Law School

November 22, 2013

United States District Court Grants Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s TILA, RESPA, and GLBA Claims

By Ebube Okoli

The court in deciding Hopkins v. Green Tree Servicing, LLC, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155547, 2013 WL 5888086 (D. Md. Oct. 30, 2013) granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s TILA, RESPA, and GLBA claims.

Plaintiff referenced three statutes in their complaint: TILA, RESPA, and GLBA. Plaintiff alleged that the defendant violated TILA by “withholding certain disclosures and documentation.” Plaintiff also claimed that defendant violated RESPA by making “loan servicing errors.” Plaintiff, however, did not state which provisions of these statutes defendant violated. With regard to the GLBA, Plaintiff alleged neither how defendant violated the statute, nor which provision defendant violated.

Accordingly, the defendant alleged that the plaintiff’s complaint failed to meet the pleading requirements set forth in Fed. R. Civ. P. 8, and the complaint did not include any of the basic information necessary to be properly considered a complaint. Defendant also claimed that plaintiff’s complaint contained none of the information required by Rule 8(a). Specifically, with regard to Rule 8(a)(2)‘s requirement of “a short and plain statement of the claim showing the pleader is entitled to relief.”

The defendant claimed that the plaintiff’s complaint was nothing more than an unadorned collection of vague and conclusory statements, in which the plaintiff failed to plead any specific facts supporting the claim that Green Tree somehow violated the law. Additionally, defendant argued that plaintiff failed to identify a single provision of RESPA and TILA that Green Tree allegedly violated. The court agreed and dismissed the plaintiff’s complaint.

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