Jerman v. Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer & Ulrich, L.P.A.
The Supreme Court ruled that a law firm cannot use the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act's 'bona fide error' defense to escape liability just because it misunderstood what the law required.
The decision means lawyers and companies that collect debts remain exposed to lawsuits over good-faith legal mistakes, not just clerical or factual slip-ups, reinforcing the old rule that not knowing the law is usually no excuse.
“the “common maxim, familiar to all minds, that ignorance of the law will not excuse any person, either civilly or criminally.””
The Court's core rationale for rejecting a legal-error defense.
How it got here: A federal trial court ruled the firm violated the law but was shielded by a legal defense; the Sixth Circuit affirmed; the homeowner asked the Supreme Court to review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
A law firm foreclosed on a homeowner's mortgage on behalf of a mortgage company, sending a notice that told her she had to dispute the debt in writing. The debt had actually already been paid, and the firm withdrew the suit once it found out. The homeowner then sued the law firm, arguing the written-dispute requirement itself violated a federal debt-collection law.
The question before the Court
If a debt collector's lawyer misreads what a federal debt-collection law requires, can that mistake count as a legal defense to being sued?
The Court's answer
No — the bona fide error defense in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not cover a debt collector's mistaken understanding of what the law itself requires. The Court relied on the longstanding rule that ignorance of the law usually isn't an excuse, noting that when Congress wanted to excuse legal mistakes elsewhere in this same statutory scheme, it said so explicitly — and it didn't do that here.
The Court also looked at how a nearly identical defense in an older law, the Truth in Lending Act, had been read by courts to cover only clerical errors, and found nothing suggesting Congress meant the debt-collection law's version to be broader. The defense still protects genuine clerical or factual mistakes, just not misreadings of the statute's legal requirements.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Debt collectors and the lawyers who represent them can be held financially liable even when they made an honest, good-faith mistake about what the law demands, so long as the mistake wasn't purely clerical or factual. This raises the stakes for law firms handling debt collection litigation and keeps open a path for consumers to sue over technical violations.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the lower courts for further proceedings under this new reading of the bona fide error defense, meaning the law firm can no longer rely on that defense for its legal misinterpretation, though it may still raise other defenses. This is a final merits decision resolving the legal question, not a temporary order, and it will guide how lower courts handle similar debt-collection defenses going forward.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the law firm's specific 'in writing' notice actually violated the debt-collection law, whether legal-error defenses apply to mistakes about state law or other federal statutes, or what kinds of factual errors qualify as bona fide errors — those questions were left open.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Breyer
Justice Breyer agreed with the majority but wrote separately to highlight that lawyers facing legal uncertainty can seek an advisory opinion from the Federal Trade Commission, which if followed shields them from liability. He acknowledged the FTC rarely issues such opinions but predicted demand would rise if the dilemma proved serious, making that tool and other safeguards adequate over time.
Concurrence in part — Justice Scalia
Justice Scalia agreed with the outcome and the Court's textual analysis but objected to two parts of the reasoning he called legal fictions: inferring that Congress knew about and approved of just three appellate rulings on the older Truth in Lending law, and the Court's heavy reliance on scattered legislative history. He argued the text alone fully supports the result without those props.
Dissent — Justice Kennedy
“Respondents acted reasonably at every step, and yet may still find themselves liable for a harmless violation.”The dissent's objection that the ruling punishes good-faith legal conduct.
Justice Kennedy argued the defense's plain text, especially its use of 'violation' rather than describing the underlying conduct, most naturally includes good-faith legal mistakes. He warned the ruling exposes debt-collection attorneys to liability even when they acted reasonably and ethically, creating conflicts between lawyers' financial interests and their duty to clients, and would have affirmed for the law firm.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court started from the long-recognized rule that ignorance or misunderstanding of the law generally does not excuse civil or criminal liability, treating this as the default lens for reading the defense's scope.
- It noted that Congress knows how to write an explicit mistake-of-law defense when it wants one — the Federal Trade Commission Act's parallel penalty provision only punishes debt collectors who acted with actual or implied knowledge that their conduct was unlawful — and the debt-collection law's bona fide error provision lacks that kind of language.
- The Court also read the requirement that a debt collector maintain 'procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such error' as naturally describing routine, mechanical safeguards against clerical slip-ups, not the kind of open-ended legal judgment involved in interpreting a complex statute.
- Turning to history, the Court found that when Congress copied this same defense language from the older Truth in Lending Act, the three federal appeals courts that had interpreted that older law's defense had all limited it to clerical errors — supporting the inference that Congress intended the same limited scope in the new law.
- The Court concluded that because none of the statutory text, structure, or history supported extending the defense to legal misinterpretations, the exception could not shield the law firm's mistaken reading of the notice requirement, even though the mistake was made in good faith.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes Heintz v. Jenkins (514 U. S. 291)
The Court said this earlier case never addressed whether the bona fide error defense covers legal misinterpretations.