The court’s finding of a clear distinction between the mandatory disclosures in Chae and the voluntary statements made by Great Lakes may be subject to further litigation. After all, a servicer of a federal student loan could hardly be expected to tell a borrower that the servicer can’t answer questions about the PLSF Program. While the Eleventh Circuit was considering an appeal from a dismissal (which required the allegations in the complaint to be accepted as true), that part of its holding could be challenged as the case progresses.
While the majority of the opinion focused on express preemption, the court also addressed Great Lakes’s other preemption arguments. The court went on to conclude there was no conflict preemption because where Congress has explicitly addressed preemption there is implication that it did not intend to preempt other areas of state law. Chae decision. Finally, the court dispatched Great Lakes’ argument of field preemption, calling it the “weakest of its preemption arguments” because the HEA does not occupy the field of debt collection practices and does not impliedly preempt state laws.
Although this choice is joining on Eleventh Circuit (Alabama, Fl, and you may Georgia), courts in several other jurisdictions supply otherwise will undoubtedly be dealing with it preemption material:
