H/T Gary Dubin

Courthouse News-

It is not too late for a man to sue after his Citibank account was frozen while the bank tried to collect another customer’s debt, the Second Circuit ruled on Monday.

The case stems from a April 25, 2003, judgment that Citibank subsidiary New Century Financial Services landed against a man by the name of Andrew Benzemann.

Citibank used that Manhattan Supreme Court judgment a little more than five years later to justify freezing the account of Alexander Benzemann.

[COURTHOUSE NEWS]

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
____________________

August Term, 2015

(Argued: August 20, 2015 Decided: November 16, 2015)

Docket No. 14?2668?cv

____________________

ALEXANDER A. BENZEMANN,

Plaintiff?Appellant,
v.

CITIBANK N.A., HOUSLANGER & ASSOCIATES, PLLC,
TODD E. HOUSLANGER, AND NEW CENTURY FINANCIAL SERVICES,
Defendants?Appellees.*

____________________

Before: CABRANES, POOLER, and CHIN, Circuit Judges.

Appeal from a June 27, 2014 judgment of the United States District Court
for the Southern District of New York (Buchwald, J.), dismissing Plaintiff?
Appellant Alexander 1 A. Benzemann’s claims under the Fair Debt Collections
Practices Act (“FDCPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Due Process Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment, and state law. In this opinion, we address the
district court’s dismissal of the FDCPA claim as untimely. We hold that an
FDCPA violation “occurs” for the purposes of the FDCPA’s statute?of?limitations
provision when a bank freezes a debtor’s bank account, not when a debt collector
sends a restraining notice to the bank. Given this holding, Benzemann’s FDCPA
claim may be timely. Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s dismissal of the
FDCPA and state law claims and remand for further proceedings consistent with
this opinion. In a summary order issued simultaneously with this opinion, we
affirm the district court’s dismissal of Benzemann’s other claims.

[…]

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