November, 2024
Washington — Yet another court has struck a blow on behalf of student loan borrower victims of shoddy loan servicing. In the case Jeffrey Good v. MOHELA (2024), the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that MOHELA did not have sovereign immunity under the Constitution's Eleventh Amendment and would have to comply with the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act.
I was doubly pleased that in so doing, the court cited Oberg v. PHEAA et al. (2015) seventeen times as precedent. It is a testament to the great work of my attorneys Bert Rein, Michael Sturm, Christopher Mills, Stephen Obermeier, and others.
The Tenth Circuit ruling came the same month as previously sealed documents in Oberg v. Nelnet et al. (2024) were unsealed per a decision of the U.S. Fourth Circuit that the public had a right to see them under the Constitution's First Amendment. Much credit goes to attorney Nandan Joshi at Public Citizen, who argued the case on behalf of New York based filmmaker Michael Camoin. Although the case is listed under my name, I had nothing to do with the effort and never met counsel Joshi until this past week, when I congratulated him both on this victory and on the MOHELA case, which he also argued.
When I filed complaints against several student loan lenders under the False Claims Act in 2007, drafting them together with counsel Jason Zuckerman, I never realized that our case would lead to two significant constitutional law developments. In fact, I thought we might face insurmountable obstacles within weeks. But despite a few setbacks here and there along the way, the case is still thriving after almost two decades.
A past outcome in the case could even be the basis for a third successful shot at yet another constitutional issue: my First Amendment rights to make charitable contributions without having to assess the hypothetical uses of the funds that might adversely affect certain undefined interests. How would a donor know those interests, or know how the charity might use the funds? It is a suppression of free speech to put such conditions on donors. I'd rather not be back in court over the matter, as my interests are hardly adverse to what I might guess are other parties' interests — relatively good servicing should be acknowledged and all servicing improved — but the constitutional issue is out there, so the case may be back in court once again.
May Good v. MOHELA lead to better student loan servicing, and may the Constitution continue to be defended.
