Judge Neil Gorsuch delivered his first opinion as a Supreme Court justice Monday, The Hill is reporting.
Rules that apply to debt collectors do not extend to companies that purchase debts, according to the unanimous Supreme Court ruling.
Gorsuch used the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act's text in his opinion on the case, which found that Santander Consumer USA is not a debt collector because it bought a $3.5 billion portfolio of auto loan debts that CitiFinancial hired it to collect, The Hill reports.
That law defines debt collectors as "those who regularly seek to collect debts 'owed or due…another,'" Gorsuch wrote in the Supreme Court opinion.
CitiFinancial argued that Congress would have treated debt purchases such as Santander like debt collectors had they been aware of them. However, Gorsuch wrote that the Supreme Court's job does not consist of rewriting laws to take speculation into account.
"These are matters for Congress, not this Court, to resolve," Gorsuch wrote in the opinion.
"Constant competition between constable and quarry, regulator and regulated, can come as no surprise in our changing world… but neither should the role of the judiciary in that process—to apply, not amend, the work of the People's representatives," Gorsuch wrote.
Gorsuch's official investiture ceremony is Thursday, in a special Supreme Court ritual to welcome him as the newest member, according to USA Today.
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