Craig E. Gearing v. Check Brokerage Corporation and Drew T. Erwin

TERENCE T. EVANS, Circuit Judge.

An old Chinese proverb holds that to chop a tree down quickly, spend twice the time sharpening your ax. The Check Brokerage Corporation did not follow the proverb’s wisdom. Although it hoped to quickly win an Illinois suit under a bad check law, insufficient time was spent studying the nuances of subrogation law, and thus the corporation found itself on the receiving end of this suit alleging violations of the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). Touché.

This saga began on a day in June of 1999 when Craig Gearing wrote two small checks — one for…