Midland Funding, a subsidiary of Encore Capital Group, is the world’s largest debt buyer and one of the most prolific users of Maryland’s District Court. It has filed tens of thousands of suits against Marylanders. But when one of those consumers, Mr. Cain, sued Midland Funding, Midland convinced the trial court and the intermediate appellate court to throw his case out of court and into forced arbitration on an individual basis, rather than as a class action. In a March, 2017 watershed opinion, Maryland’s highest court overruled the lower court and held that when it originally sued Mr. Cain in a collection action, Midland waived its right to compel arbitration. The Court of Appeals said:
Because Midland’s 2009 collection action is related to Cain’s claims, Midland waived its right to arbitrate the current claims hen it chose to litigate the collection action. In addition, Cain does not have to demonstrate that he suffered prejudice to establish that Midland waived the arbitration provision.
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