Greenpoint Credit Corp. v. Perez

Opinion by

PHIL HARDBERGER, Chief Justice.

This unfair debt collections act case involves an illegal threat by a finance company to put an elderly woman in jail for a debt that she did not owe, on a mobile home she did not own. A jury awarded substantial actual and punitive damages. The case comes to this court principally on the excessiveness of actual damages, and the absence of the predicate requirements necessary to impose damages against the corporation, as opposed to the overzealous employee.

The case began when an employee of the finance company, GreenPoint Credit Corp. (“GreenPoint”),…