Cline v. Bank of America, N.A.

823 F. Supp. 2d 387, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118337, 2011 WL 4857934
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. West Virginia
DecidedOctober 13, 2011
DocketCivil Action No. 2:10-1295
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 823 F. Supp. 2d 387 (Cline v. Bank of America, N.A.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. West Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cline v. Bank of America, N.A., 823 F. Supp. 2d 387, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118337, 2011 WL 4857934 (S.D.W. Va. 2011).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

JOHN T. COPENHAVER, JR., District Judge.

Pending is the motion of Bank of America, N.A. (“BOA”), for judgment on the pleadings filed April 4, 2011.

I.

A. The Complaint and Removal

Plaintiff Mark C. Cline is a West Virginia citizen. Defendant BOA is a North Carolina citizen and a national bank engaged in the business of consumer lending.

Cline’s complaint offers very few factual allegations. It appears that he is self employed as a chiropractor. At some unstated time he financed the purchase of a motorcycle through BOA. BOA engaged in loan collection activities following his default. It made over 400 telephone calls to Cline and his business during an unspecified interval.

Cline complains about several abusive practices related to the collection calls. Some of the contacts are alleged to have occurred after he told the caller that he had retained counsel relating to the loan obligation. Other calls were placed to Cline’s employees, who then learned the details of his indebtedness.

On September 15, 2010, Cline instituted an action in the Circuit Court of Mingo County. He alleges claims for (1) violation of The West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act (“WVCCPA”), West Virginia Code sections 46A-2-125(d), 46A-2-126(a), and 46A-2-128(e)1 (“Count One”), [390]*390(2) negligence arising out of “making numerous telephone calls with the intent to annoy, harass, and oppress the Plaintiff in an effort to collect a debt....” (Compl. ¶ 10) (“Count Two”); (3) intentional infliction of emotional distress arising out of “annoying, inconveniencing, harassing, and oppressing the Plaintiff even after the Plaintiff informed the Defendant [he] ... was represented by an attorney” {IdA 16) (“Count Three”); (4) invasion of privacy due to interference with the right “to be free from harassing, oppressing and annoying telephone calls ...” (/¿.¶ 21) (“Count Four”); and (5) nuisance inasmuch as BOA caused Cline’s telephone “to repeatedly or continuously ... ring several times a day for many days even after” a request to desist and contact his lawyer (/¿¶ 26) (“Count Five”). Cline seeks injunctive relief, tort damages, statutory damages and interest, expunction of the underlying loan obligation and recovery of any amounts previously paid to reduce it, punitive damages, and fees and costs.

On November 12, 2010, BOA removed. It now seeks judgment on the pleadings. It asserts Cline’s claims are preempted by the National Bank Act (“NBA”) and, if not, that portions of Counts One through Six fail as a matter of law.

B. The Parties’ Contentions Respecting NBA Preemption-Prior to the DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank Act”)

BOA relies generally upon the notion that, under the NBA, “federal control shields national banking from unduly burdensome and duplicative state regulation.” Watters v. Wachovia Bank, N.A., 550 U.S. 1, 11, 127 S.Ct. 1559, 167 L.Ed.2d 389 (2007). The decision in Watters provides the general parameters governing day-today agency implementation of the NBA:

National banks’ business activities are controlled by the [NBA and] ... regulations promulgated thereunder by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). OCC is charged with supervision of the NBA and, thus, oversees the banks’ operations and interactions with customers. The NBA grants OCC, as part of its supervisory authority, visitorial powers to audit the banks’ books and records, largely to the exclusion of other state or federal entities.

Watters, 550 U.S. at 1, 127 S.Ct. 1559 (citations omitted).

Central to its claim that Counts One through Five must give way to federal law is a regulatory provision promulgated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”), namely, 12 C.F.R. section 7.4008(d)(1). At the time this action was filed on November 12, 2010, section 7.4008(d)(1) provided pertinently as follows:

Applicability of state law.
Except where made applicable by Federal law, state laws that obstruct, impair, or condition a national bank’s ability to fully exercise its Federally authorized non-real estate lending powers are not applicable to national banks.

Id. Subsection (e) additionally states this:

State laws on the following subjects are not inconsistent with the non-real estate lending powers of national banks and apply to national banks to the extent that they only incidentally affect the exercise of national banks’ non-real estate lending powers:
(1) Contracts;
(2) Torts;
[391]*391(3) Criminal law; ...
(4) Rights to collect debts;
(5) Acquisition and transfer of property;
(6) Taxation;
(7) Zoning; and
(8) Any other law the effect of which the OCC determines to be incidental to the non-real estate lending operations of national banks or otherwise consistent with the powers set out in paragraph (a) of this section.

12 C.F.R. § 7.4008(e) (emphasis added) (footnote omitted).

The parties in their briefing, which concluded May 4, 2011, suggest that there are two divergent lines of authority (1) interpreting these regulations, and (2) addressing their preemptive scope. BOA principally relies upon Lomax v. Bank of America, N.A, 435 B.R. 362 (N.D.W.Va.2010), and In re Jones, 449 B.R. 494 (Bankr.N.D.W.Va.2011) (applying Lomax). The precedential weight of those cases, however, appears to have been supplanted by a decision rendered in recent days. O’Neal v. Capital One Auto Finance, Inc., No. 3:10-0040, 2011 WL 4549148, at *7 (N.D.W.Va. Sept. 29, 2011) (concluding, in contrast to Lomax, “that section 128(e) of the WVCCPA does not prevent or significantly interfere with [a national bank’s] exercise of its powers under the NBA.”).

Cline relies upon Smith v. BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP, 769 F.Supp.2d 1033 (S.D.W.Va.2011) (Goodwin, C.J.), a decision which was implicitly found persuasive in O’Neal. In Smith, the court interpreted 12 C.F.R. § 34.4(a), which governs real estate lending. Like its non-real-estate-lending counterpart found in section 7.4008(d)(1) and applicable here, section 34.4(a) provided, at the time Smith was decided, that “state laws ... obstructing], impairing], or conditioning] a national bank’s ability to fully exercise its Federally authorized real estate lending powers do not apply to national banks.” 12 C.F.R. § 34.4(a).

In Smith, the court noted that “|j]udicial opinions considering NBA and OCC preemption often borrow from the ...

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Bluebook (online)
823 F. Supp. 2d 387, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118337, 2011 WL 4857934, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cline-v-bank-of-america-na-wvsd-2011.