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Law360 (June 11, 2020, 7:25 PM EDT) -- A group of class action attorneys were hit with a New Jersey federal lawsuit Thursday by a credit reporting company's founder claiming his family was harassed by a rude process server who was delivering frivolous litigation over a purported payday lending scheme.
MicroBilt Corp.'s Philip N. Burgess Jr. and his wife Michelle say Consumer Litigation Associates PC, Berger Montague PC and Kelly Guzzo PLC ensnared his firm in Virginia lawsuits accusing loan businesses of exploiting Native American tribal law to charge usurious rates, and then used high-pressure tactics in an attempt to force settlements from Burgess and MicroBilt.
The attorneys then filed the same claims in New Jersey, and had legal documents delivered to the Burgess family's home by a process server who banged on windows and flouted COVID-19 safety precautions.
The way the "frivolous and unfounded" litigation was served caused the couple and their four children, three of whom are minors, "to fear possible home invasion, robbery and assault," the complaint said. The conduct was "extreme and outrageous," according to Burgess.
"Defendants' conduct, through their duly authorized agents, was intentional and intended to produce emotional distress, or reckless in deliberate disregard of the high degree of probability that emotional distress would result," the complaint said.
The underlying litigation entails four complaints in the Eastern District of Virginia, according to Burgess' suit. Two of the lawsuits accuse payday lenders of violating racketeering and usury laws by exploiting tribal immunity to skirt state laws on interest rate limits. The other two allege Fair Credit Reporting Act violations.
MicroBilt and Burgess, a consultant for the company, are named as defendants in only two of the suits, but were pressured to respond to "burdensome discovery demands" in all four complaints. The allegations against Burgess claim he obtained the class action plaintiffs' consumer credit reports and provided them to defendant Big Picture Loans to give it a defense strategy advantage.
The attorneys' high-pressure settlement tactics included "serving numerous overlapping and conflicting unilateral notices of depositions for employees of MicroBilt across multiple states," a task complicated by the fact that employees of MicroBilt's New Jersey and Georgia offices are working remotely due to the pandemic, the complaint said.
Earlier this month, a Consumer Litigation Associates attorney gave a Virginia federal judge "inaccurate" information about Burgess' relationship with MicroBilt and Big Picture owner Matt Martorello, the complaint said.
After Burgess was dismissed from one of the Virginia lawsuits, the defendants lodged the same claims in New Jersey federal court, according to the complaint.
However, the attorneys should have known there was no legal basis for the New Jersey complaint because Burgess isn't a "user" of consumer data within the meaning of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the data that he supposedly procured wasn't considered governed data for FCA purposes, his complaint said.
The Burgess family's first brush with process servers came on the evening of May 15, when a woman visited their Princeton home with court papers, rang the doorbell and left after Michelle told her that her husband wasn't home. The couple's four children were home at the time, the complaint said.
The next afternoon, a male process server came to their home, rang the doorbell, "and without waiting for anyone to respond, began intentionally banging on the picture windows on the front of the house," the complaint said. When two of the Burgess children went to answer the door, the server threw the papers at them and left, according to the complaint.
The same process server returned to the Burgesses' home on May 20 and banged on the front windows, not even ringing the doorbell or knocking, until a housekeeper answered the door, the complaint said.
During each of his visits, the male process server ignored coronavirus precautions by not wearing a mask or gloves, and didn't maintain a six-foot distance from people, according to the complaint.
The three-count complaint accuses the attorneys of malicious abuse of process, invasion of privacy interests and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Burgesses want compensatory, consequential and punitive damages and a declaration that they were harassed.
Representatives for the parties didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Burgesses are represented by Gerald Krovatin of Krovatin Nau LLC.
Counsel information for the defendants was unavailable.
The case is Burgess et al. v. Bennett al., case number 3:20-cv-07103, in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
--Editing by Adam LoBelia.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
