ROBERT JACKSON and JEANETTE ETRO v. Blitt & Gaines, P.c.

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
Nos. 15‐1573 & 15‐1820
R OBERT J ACKSON and
J EANETTE ETRO,
Plaintiffs‐Appellants,
v.
BLITT & G AINES, P.C.,
Defendant‐Appellee.
____________________
Appeals from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division
No. 14 C 8625 — Harry D. Leinenweber, Judge.
No. 14 C 8924 – John Robert Blakey, Judge.
____________________
A RGUED OCTOBER 27, 2015 — D ECIDED A UGUST 17, 2016
____________________
Before KANNE and R OVNER , Circuit Judges, and BRUCE ,
District Judge.
 The Honorable Colin S. Bruce, of the United States District Court for
the Central District of Illinois, sitting by designation.

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2 Nos. 15‐1573 & 15‐1820
KANNE , Circuit Judge. At issue in this appeal is whether a
wage‐garnishment action under Illinois law is a “legal ac‐
tion” on a debt against a consumer under the venue provi‐
sion of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”). We
hold that such actions are not against the consumer and
therefore affirm the dismissals made by the respective dis‐
trict courts in this consolidated appeal. 1
I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiffs Robert Jackson and Jeanette Etro’s (collectively,
“Plaintiffs”) respective complaints against Defendant Blitt &
Gaines, P.C. (“B&G”), a debt collector, are similar in all mate‐
rial aspects. In both cases, Plaintiffs purportedly owed a
debt, the creditor filed suit in Cook County seeking to collect
on that debt, and after each Plaintiff failed to appear in
court, a Cook County Circuit Court entered a default judg‐
ment against each of them. In each case then, B&G filed an
affidavit for a wage deduction (“wage‐garnishment action”)
in the First Municipal District in downtown Chicago and ob‐
tained a summons against Plaintiffs’ respective employers.
Both Plaintiffs allege it was this final act that violated the
FDCPA’s venue provision, 15 U.S.C. § 1692i(a)(2), because
B&G should have filed the affidavits in the Sixth Municipal
District in Markham, Illinois—the municipal district closest
to Plaintiffs—and not in the First Municipal District.2
1 Pursuant to Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 3(b)(2), counsel for
Plaintiffs moved to consolidate the appeals of Plaintiff Robert Jackson
and Plaintiff Jeanette Etro, and we granted the motion.
2 The Cook County Circuit Court’s Municipal Department has been sub‐
divided into six smaller units called municipal districts.

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Nos. 15‐1573 & 15‐1820 3
Plaintiffs filed their respective complaints in 2014, and
B&G moved to dismiss them on the basis that B&G’s filing of
an affidavit for a wage deduction did not constitute a “legal
action” against a “consumer” within the meaning of the
FDCPA. The district courts agreed and granted B&G’s re‐
spective motions. This consolidated appeal followed.
II. A NALYSIS
Our review of a district court’s decision to grant a motion
to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
12(b)(6) is de novo. Reynolds v. CB Sports Bar, Inc., 623 F.3d
1143, 1146 (7th Cir. 2010). When reviewing a motion to dis‐
miss for failure to state a claim, “[w]e construe the complaint
in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, accepting as true
all well‐pleaded facts alleged, and drawing all possible in‐
ferences in her favor.” Tamayo v. Blagojevich, 526 F.3d 1074,
1081 (7th Cir. 2008). To survive such a motion, a complaint
must “state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.”
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal quotation
marks omitted).
One purpose of the FDCPA is “to eliminate abusive debt
collection practices by debt collectors.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692(e).
With that goal in mind, Congress enacted 15 U.S.C. § 1692i,
which is aimed at preventing the abusive practice of debt
collectors filing claims against consumers in improper ven‐
ues. See S. Rep. No. 95–382, at 5 (1977), reprinted in 1977
U.S.C.C.A.N. 1695, 1699. Plaintiffs have filed their com‐
plaints pursuant to this provision, which provides in rele‐
vant part that “[a]ny debt collector who brings any legal ac‐
tion on a debt against any consumer shall … bring such action
only in the judicial district or similar legal entity—(A) in
which such consumer signed the contract sued upon; or (B)

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4 Nos. 15‐1573 & 15‐1820
in which such consumer resides at the commencement of the
action.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692i(a)(2) (emphasis added). Violating
this provision makes the debt collector liable to the consum‐
er for statutory and actual damages, in addition to attorney’s
fees. 15 U.S.C. § 1692k.
The parties here do not dispute that: (1) Plaintiffs qualify
as a “consumer” under the FDCPA and (2) B&G is a “debt
collector” under the FDCPA. The sole issue on appeal here is
whether B&G’s wage‐garnishment actions constituted a “le‐
gal action … against any consumer” under § 1692i.
As with all questions of statutory interpretation, we start
with the text of the statute to ascertain its plain meaning.
Hughey v. United States, 495 U.S. 411, 415 (1990). To do so, we
“must look to the particular statutory language at issue, as
well as the language and design of the statute as a whole.” K
Mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 486 U.S. 281, 291 (1988). “It is a
fundamental canon of statutory construction that, unless
otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as taking their
ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.” Sandifer v. U.S.
Steel Corp., 134 S. Ct. 870, 876 (2014) (internal quotation
marks omitted). That means we look to the meaning of the
word at the time the statute was enacted, Perrin v. United
States, 444 U.S. 37, 42 (1979), often by referring to dictionar‐
ies, see Sandifer, 134 S. Ct. at 876.
The FDCPA does not define a “legal action,” so we must
determine its “ordinary, contemporary, [and] common mean‐
ing” at the time the provision was enacted—in 1977. The
Black’s Law Dictionary in effect then also does not define
“legal action.” It does, however, provide the following defi‐
nition for “action” under the heading “Practice”: “It includes
all the formal proceedings in a court of justice attendant upon

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Nos. 15‐1573 & 15‐1820 5
the demand of a right made by one person of another in
such court, including an adjudication upon the right and its
enforcement or denial by the court.” (4th Ed. 1951) (empha‐
sis added). In other words, an action in legal practice means
all formal judicial proceedings.
The Ninth Circuit in defining “legal action” in a different
context found that “literally thousands of cases have used
the term to refer to litigation,” which lead it to conclude that
the term’s common usage refers to “litigation or judicial pro‐
ceedings.” S&M Inv. Co. v. Tahoe Regʹl Planning Agency, 911
F.2d 324, 327 (9th Cir. 1990) (emphasis added). The same cir‐
cuit relied on this interpretation to hold that “legal action” in
§ 1692i means “all judicial proceedings, including those in
enforcement of a previously‐adjudicated right.” Fox v. Cit‐
icorp Credit Svcs., Inc., 15 F.3d 1507, 1515 (9th Cir. 1994). We
agree that “legal action” under § 1692i means all judicial
proceedings.
This determination though does not answer our question.
The phrase after all provides that the “legal action” must be
on a debt “against any consumer.” To determine what
“against any consumer” means, we look to the nature of ju‐
dicial proceedings at issue, which in this case, requires us to
refer to Illinois law and the wage‐garnishment scheme in
place there. We use the word nature to make clear that we
analyze the proceeding’s characteristics and features, careful
to avoid the “tyranny of labels” when relying upon state law
to define the scope of a federal statute and cause of action.
EEOC v. Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, 315 F.3d 696, 705 (7th
Cir. 2002). The First and Eighth Circuits also looked to the
nature of the underlying state proceedings when analyzing
this same question. See Smith v. Solomon & Solomon, P.C., 714

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6 Nos. 15‐1573 & 15‐1820
F.3d 73, 75 (1st Cir. 2013) (Massachusetts law); Hageman v.
Barton, 817 F.3d 611, 618 (8th Cir. 2016) (Illinois law). When
referring to state law though, we must be mindful that the
FDCPA preempts state law to the extent state law affords a
consumer less protection than the FDCPA does. 15 U.S.C.
§ 1692n; Hageman, 817 F.3d at 618.
Plaintiffs argue that we should interpret wage‐
garnishment actions under Illinois law as being directed at
them—the underlying judgment debtor—and not their
third‐party employers because the statutory scheme requires
that judgment debtors receive notice and an opportunity to
contest responses given by their employers during the pro‐
ceedings. We disagree.
Analyzing the Illinois wage‐deduction scheme makes
clear that its focus is on the third‐party employer, not the
judgment debtor. First, the summons is issued against the
employer, not the debtor, and must be served upon the em‐
ployer. 735 ILCS 5/12‐805(a). A judgment debtor is only enti‐
tled to notice via U.S. mail. Id. Second, the debt collector
serves interrogatories upon the employer who then must re‐
spond to them under oath. 735 ILCS 5/12‐808(c). Third, while
the debtor receives a copy of the employer’s answered inter‐
rogatories and may contest those answers or request a hear‐
ing to dispute whether certain wages are exempt, the only
response that is necessary for the action to continue the ac‐
tion is the employer’s. 735 ILCS 5/12‐811(a)–(b). In other
words, the judgment debtor is not a necessary participant.
Fourth, the employer may also be found liable if it does not
comply with the wage‐garnishment process. See 5/12‐808(e)–
(f), including having a conditional judgment entered against
it if it fails to appear and answer in response to a summons,

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Nos. 15‐1573 & 15‐1820 7
735 ILCS 5/12‐807(a). No such penalty exists for the judg‐
ment debtor. Finally, and perhaps most important for our
purposes, wage‐garnishment actions must be filed in the
county where the third‐party employer resides, regardless of
the judgment debtor’s residence. Ill. S. Ct. R. 277(d). These
characteristics of an Illinois wage‐garnishment action make
clear to us that it is a legal proceeding against an employer, not
a consumer.
Our conclusion is supported both by precedent and the
purpose behind the FDCPA. The First Circuit in Smith ana‐
lyzed a similar Massachusetts wage‐deduction scheme and
concluded the action was “geared toward compelling the
[employer] to act, not the debtor.” 714 F.3d at 76. There, the
Massachusetts wage‐deduction scheme, like Illinois’s regime,
required the summons to be issued against the employer
and filed in the county where the employer resides. Id. at 75–
76. And, like the Illinois scheme, the Massachusetts regime
required that the debtor receive notice and “an opportunity
to contest.” Id. at 76. The Eighth Circuit when analyzing the
same Illinois wage‐garnishment scheme also concluded the
action was not “against any consumer.” See Hageman, 817
F.3d 617–18.
The FDCPA’s purpose is also unaffected by our decision
today. As the First Circuit recognized, Congress’s principal
“concern underlying the FDCPA venue provision was that a
debt collector would file in an inconvenient forum, obtain a
default judgment, and thereby deny the consumer an oppor‐
tunity to defend herself.” Smith, 714 F.3d at 76 (citing S. Rep.
No. 95–382, at 5 (1977), reprinted in 1977 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1695,
1699). That is why, as the First Circuit noted, the Federal
Trade Commission’s commentary provides “[i]f a judgment

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8 Nos. 15‐1573 & 15‐1820
is obtained in a forum that satisfies the requirements of [15
U.S.C. § 1692i], it may be enforced in another jurisdiction,
because the consumer previously has had the opportunity to
defend the original action in a convenient forum.” Id. (altera‐
tions in original) (quoting Statements of General Policy or
Interpretation Staff Commentary On the Fair Debt Collection
Practices Act, 53 Fed. Reg. 50,097, 50,109 (Dec. 13, 1988)).
Such guidance holds some interpretative sway, though it is
not entitled to Chevron deference. Carter v. AMC, LLC, 645
F.3d 840, 844 (7th Cir. 2011).
Here, Plaintiffs had a chance to defend themselves in a
venue that was considered appropriate under our interpreta‐
tion of § 1692i at the time the suits were filed. At that time,
Newsom v. Friedman, 76 F.3d 813 (7th Cir. 1996) was still good
law in this circuit. In Newsom, we held that Illinois circuit
courts constituted a “judicial district” within the meaning of
§ 1292i. We rejected the plaintiff’s interpretation there that
Cook County Circuit Court’s Municipal Department’s small‐
er units—the municipal district—could constitute a “judicial
district or similar legal entity,” which, if accepted, would
have required debt collectors to file their complaints in the
proper municipal district. Therefore, under Newsom, debt
collectors would not have violated the FDCPA’s venue pro‐
vision if they filed their complaint against a debtor in any
municipal district in Cook County, so long as the resident
resided in Cook County or the consumer signed the contract
being sued upon in Cook County. That is what the debt col‐
lectors in this case did when they filed suit against Plain‐
tiffs—Cook County residents—in Cook County Circuit
Court. It was irrelevant at the time that the creditors filed
their complaints against Plaintiffs in the First Municipal Dis‐
trict and not the Sixth Municipal District.

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Nos. 15‐1573 & 15‐1820 9
Newsom remained intact until we overruled it in Suesz v.
Med‐1 Solutions, LLC, 757 F.3d 636 (7th Cir. 2014) (en banc).
Under Suesz, debt collectors must now file in the proper
municipal district within Cook County Circuit Court. But
that decision was issued in July 2014, too late for Plaintiffs in
this case to take advantage because the one year statute of
limitations had already run on their FDCPA claims. 15 U.S.C.
§ 1692k(d). Although Suesz was made retroactive, 757 F.3d at
649–50, it did not invalidate the FDCPA’s statute of limita‐
tions and bring to life claims for which the limitations period
had long run. Plaintiffs’ efforts here appear to be nothing
more than a thinly veiled attempt to resurrect zombie
FDCPA claims by asserting that wage‐garnishment actions
are against the consumer. We refuse to apply the FDCPA to
circumvent the important policies underlying a statute of
limitations, which include “rapid resolution of disputes; re‐
pose for those against whom a claim could be brought;
avoidance of litigation involving lost evidence or distorted
testimony of witnesses.” Soignier v. Am. Bd. of Plastic Surgery,
92 F.3d 547, 553 (7th Cir. 1996).
Plaintiffs argue that we should embrace the reasoning of
Adkins v. Weltman, Weinberg & Reis Co., L.P.A., No. 2:11‐CV‐
00619, 2012 WL 604249 (S.D. Ohio Feb. 24, 2012), an un‐
published district court decision from outside this circuit.
There, the district court analyzed the Ohio wage‐
garnishment regime and determined that “[o]nly the judg‐
ment creditor and the judgment debtor have any beneficial
interest at stake in a garnishment action” and that the em‐
ployer is only a “nominal ‘defendant.’” Id. at *6. Plaintiffs
claim that because Ohio and Illinois’s wage‐garnishment re‐
gimes share some similarities—both require notice to the
judgment debtor and allow the judgment debtor an oppor‐

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10 Nos. 15‐1573 & 15‐1820
tunity to respond—that we should reach the same conclu‐
sion as the Adkins court.
There is, however, one key feature that differentiates Illi‐
nois’s regime from the Ohio regime: To file a wage‐
garnishment action in Illinois, a debt collector must file it in
the county where the third party employer resides. Ill. S. Ct.
R. 277(d). Under Illinois law then, if, for example, the judg‐
ment debtor lived in Boone County and executed the con‐
tract at issue in Boone County and the debtor’s employer re‐
sided in Winnebago County, the debt collector would never
be able to garnish the debtor’s wages without violating the
FDCPA. We decline to adopt such an interpretation. The
FDCPA was created to prevent abusive debt‐collection prac‐
tices, not to prevent law‐abiding creditors from collecting on
legally enforceable debts.3
III. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the judgments of the district
courts are AFFIRMED.
3 Plaintiffs’ attempts to characterize the wage‐garnishment regime as a
hybrid action against both the debtor and the employer fail for the same
reason—enforcing the FDCPA in the manner suggested by Plaintiffs
would create several situations where a creditor could not file a wage‐
garnishment action without either violating the FDCPA (by filing in the
employer’s municipal district) or failing to comply with Illinois law (by
filing in the debtor’s municipal district).

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