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Debt is bad enough without having to deal with creditors' indecipherable language • Minnesota Reformer [1]

['Ian Lewenstein', 'More From Author', 'March']

Date: 2024-03-26

Proposed legislation this session on medical debt attempts to counter the pernicious effects that debt — even small amounts — can bring to people’s lives.

But just 17% of debt-collection cases involve medical debt, according to a 2023 report from the Minnesota State Bar Association. The report, written by the association’s Access to Justice Committee, highlights how consumer-debt litigation is an access-to-justice issue.

So while the legislative focus on medical debt is laudable, the Legislature should extend this focus to all types of consumer debt.

Minnesotans have a basic right to understand and navigate the justice system, and this right should extend to debt litigation. But currently, this right is threatened. For example, the committee noted how almost all Minnesotans involved in debt litigation don’t have a lawyer. Without a lawyer, Minnesotans lose: 82% of district-court cases and 54% of conciliation-court cases result in Minnesotans losing because they didn’t respond to a case against them.

In other words, the debt process is so confusing that Minnesotans forgo their chance to make it to court and be heard.

One necessary solution to combat this opaque consumer-debt process is plain language. It’s great that the medical-debt bill recognizes plain language’s important role in consumer rights by requiring the attorney general to review and recommend how to revise forms and notices into plain language and to consult with the Center for Plain Language (I’m a board member, and see the center’s written testimony).

But plain language must be a necessary part of the entire consumer-debt process.

Preferring plain language

Minnesota courts have attempted to make the debt process clearer for Minnesotans by revising the complaint form used in debt-collection cases. But the committee found that the revised form was rarely used and didn’t include plain-language instructions. The committee noted how legalese and unrepresented consumers combine to impede access to justice:

“Variation in documents used to initiate consumer debt claims means the court cannot ensure that defendants are getting consistent information about their rights and options, or that the information is in plain language and understandable for consumers without attorneys.”

Credit to the committee, which goes on to recommend how plain language can be beneficially used in consumer-debt documents:

Improve and expand court forms and self-help documents

Include plain-language descriptions of the common defenses to a debt lawsuit

Mandate and enforce the use of a standard summons

Revise a notice to include plain-language information about garnishment exemptions

These recommendations are simple but effective. They are also doable. Just look at the New York City Police Department, which redesigned its standard summons and found that the failure-to-appear rates were 13% lower for those who received the new summons compared to those who received the old one.

Based on this rate, 23,000 fewer arrest warrants were issued, all because a summons was redesigned in plain language (Michigan just revised its standard summons as well.)

Other plain-language improvements are easy to make:

Use personal pronouns such as “you” and “we”

SHUN ALL-CAPS TEXT, WHICH REDUCES READABILITY

Leave out legalese

Remove dense blocks of text

Define legal terms such as “default judgment” and “summons”

Conform to legal-drafting guidance from the Uniform Law Commission and the Federal Plain Language Guidelines

Penalize legalese

Embedding plain language into court forms and legal processes is a good start. But we should also penalize creditors that fail to communicate in plain language. For plain language, penalties in Minnesota Statutes are sparse, but they do exist. For instance, section 604.175 allows a patient to stop a nonprofit hospital from taking “extraordinary collection actions” if the hospital has failed to provide a plain-language summary of its financial-assistance policy.

Any proposed legislation should consider including an enforceable penalty for a creditor’s or company’s failure to use plain language regarding debts and legal actions. A penalty — combined with a broader push for plain language in court forms, instructions, summonses, and other legal information — can play an important role in reducing the debt burden on Minnesotans and ensuring equal access to justice.

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[1] Url: https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/03/26/debt-is-bad-enough-without-having-to-decipher-creditors-indecipherable-language/

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