This opinion seems obviously right, no?
A solar company sells a solar system to a homeowner, and the homeowner in turn owes monthly payments to the company. When the homeowner sells the house, she pays the solar company (in advance) all the monthly payments that are ever owed under the life of the contract, and turns over the solar system to the new owner. But solar company keeps sending bills to the new owner -- bills that aren't actually due. So the new homeowner sues under the (California) Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
The trial court dismisses the complaint on a demurrer, holding that the new homeowner wasn't covered by the statute because the new homeowner (1) didn't actually buy anything from the solar company, so it wasn't a consumer transaction (between them), and (2) didn't actually owe the defendant money.
But the Court of Appeal -- entirely rightly -- reverses. It doesn't matter that the new homeowner didn't owe anything. The whole point of the statute was to stop debt collectors from trying to collect debts that were not, in fact, owed. Like here.
I'm not at all sure how the trial court could have gotten this one wrong. Regardless, I was glad to see the error corrected in the Court of Appeal.
