ORDER

WILLIAM H. STEELE, Chief District Judge.

This matter, which was recently reassigned to the undersigned's docket, comes before the Court on defendant Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.'s Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings (doc. 176). The Motion has been extensively briefed and is now ripe for disposition.1

I. Relevant Background.

On March 1, 2016, plaintiffs, George and Pamela Shedd, filed their Third Amended and Supplemental Complaint (doc. 152) against Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Barclays Capital Real Estate, Inc., and Monument Street Funding, II, LLC. On the face of the pleadings, this case is a mortgage loan dispute, not unlike dozens of others that have traversed this District Court in the wake of the financial crisis and the concomitant bursting of the so-called "housing bubble." The Shedds entered into a mortgage loan transaction in connection with the purchase of a home in 1991, then subsequently fell behind on their payments and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Third Amended Complaint documents various alleged infirmities in the handling of the Shedds' loan by defendants Wells Fargo (alleged to be servicer of the loan), Barclays (alleged to have previously serviced the loan) and Monument (alleged to be assignee of the mortgage). This basic fact pattern is not uncommon in the undersigned's experience. The difference, however, is that (1) the Shedds' Third Amended Complaint sprawls across 128 pages, 193 paragraphs, and 16 causes of action; and (2) this case has been fiercely litigated for nearly two years, has accrued more than 215 docket entries, with nearly six months of discovery still ahead.2

On May 18, 2016, this case was transitioned to the undersigned's docket.3 Review of the docket sheet reveals a pending Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings, wherein Wells Fargo seeks judgment on the pleadings as to two counts of the Third Amended Complaint, namely, Count Four (which sounds in a theory of wantonness) and Count Sixteen (a statutory claim for violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act). Plaintiffs vigorously oppose entry of judgment on the pleadings.

II. Legal Standard for Rule 12(c) Motions.

From the outset, both the Shedds and Wells Fargo demonstrate confusion as to the legal standard governing the Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings. Indeed, both sides incorrectly invoke the "no set of facts" test associated with Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). (See doc. 177, at 3-4; doc. 200, at 4.) That formulation of the standard is no longer valid in the wake of the Supreme Court's announcement in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007), that Conley's "no set of facts" language "has earned its retirement." 550 U.S. at 563. Rather, the Twombly "plausibility" test, and not the retired "no set of facts" formulation, governs here. See, e.g., Gentilello v. Rege, 627 F.3d 540, 543-44 (5th Cir. 2010) ("We evaluate a motion under Rule 12(c) for judgment on the pleadings using the same standard as a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. . . . To avoid dismissal, a plaintiff must plead sufficient facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.") (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).4

As a matter of well-settled law, "[j]udgment on the pleadings is appropriate where there are no material facts in dispute and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Perez v. Wells Fargo N.A., 774 F.3d 1329, 1335 (11th Cir. 2014) (citation omitted); Mergens v. Dreyfoos, 166 F.3d 1114, 1117 (11th Cir. 1999) (similar); Hawthorne v. Mac Adjustment, Inc., 140 F.3d 1367, 1370 (11th Cir. 1998) (similar). "In determining whether a party is entitled to judgment on the pleadings, we accept as true all material facts alleged in the non-moving party's pleading, and we view those facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party." Perez, 774 F.3d at 1335. "If a comparison of the averments in the competing pleadings reveals a material dispute of fact, judgment on the pleadings must be denied." Id. (citation omitted). These principles, along with the Twombly "plausibility" standard, inform and guide the analysis of Wells Fargo's Rule 12(c) Motion.5

III. Count Four (Wantonness).

A. Nature of the Shedds' Wantonness Claim.

By way of background and context, according to the Third Amended Complaint, servicing responsibilities for the Shedds' loan were transferred to Wells Fargo on September 1, 2010, at which time Wells Fargo became "servicing agent for Monument." (Third Amended Complaint (doc. 152), ¶ 39.) Plaintiffs allege that Wells Fargo "continued to breach Plaintiffs' contract under the loan and mortgage, and further breached its contract with Monument, of which Plaintiffs are third party beneficiaries," thereafter. (Id.) Plaintiffs further maintain that Wells Fargo engaged in "other unlawful acts" amounting to a "pattern and practice of misconduct" motivated by "self-dealing and desire to increase income and profits . . . at the expense of Plaintiffs." (Id., ¶ 48.) The Third Amended Complaint details these alleged shortcomings exhaustively. (Id. at pp. 28-60.)

In Count Four, the Shedds allege a claim of wantonness against Wells Fargo. (Id., ¶¶ 78-80.) The scope of Count Four is critical to evaluation of Wells Fargo's Rule 12(c) motion. Rather than pegging the wantonness claim to the dozens of errors and improprieties alleged over the span of more than 30 pages of their Third Amended Complaint, the Shedds focus on a subset of those allegations. From the face of the Third Amended Complaint, the Shedds' wantonness claim is directed at "Wells Fargo's failure to perform its duties outlined in its November 21, 2011 letter to plaintiffs." (Id., ¶ 79.) Read in its entirety, however, Count Four specifically includes the following allegations: (i) the November 21, 2011 letter stated that the "bankruptcy workstation would remain open" so that Wells Fargo could "accept payments and stop the collection calls;" (ii) Wells Fargo continued to report the Shedds as delinquent to consumer reporting agencies; (iii) Wells Fargo continued to undertake collection efforts, including telephone calls; (iv) Wells Fargo failed to keep the "bankruptcy workstation" open; (v) Wells Fargo continued to "misallocate payments, and assess fees and other charges without any basis to do so;" (vi) Wells Fargo "failed to properly report Form 1098 mortgage interest deductions" for four years; (vii) Wells Fargo "wrongfully force-placed hazard insurance in 2012 and 2013 in excessive amounts;" and (viii) Wells Fargo "caused the other damages detailed" in the Third Amended Complaint as a result of "duties set out and promised in its November 21, 2011 letter to Plaintiffs, and subsequent promises in its May 20, 2014 letter to Plaintiffs described herein, which it failed to perform." (Id., ¶ 79.)6

B. The Shepherd/James Line of Cases.

In its Rule 12(c) Motion, Wells Fargo posits that Count Four should be dismissed because Alabama law does not recognize a cause of action for wanton servicing of a mortgage loan. Abundant federal authority supports this premise. See, e.g., James v. Nationstar Mortg., LLC, 92 F.Supp.3d 1190, 1198 (S.D. Ala. 2015) (recognizing that "a veritable avalanche of recent (and apparently unanimous) federal precedent has found that no cause of action for negligent or wanton servicing of a mortgage account exists under Alabama law"). This line of authority proceeds in "recognition that the mortgage servicing obligations at issue here are a creature of contract, not of tort, and stem from the underlying mortgage and promissory note executed by the parties, rather than a duty of reasonable care generally owed to the public." Id. at 1200.

Any lingering doubts as to the state of Alabama law on this point were eradicated by the Alabama Supreme Court last year in a case styled U.S. Bank Nat'l Ass'n v. Shepherd, ___ So.3d ___, 2015 WL 7356384 (Ala. Nov. 20, 2015). The Shepherd Court indicated that the parties' relationship "is based upon the mortgage and is therefore a contractual one; that is to say, the duties and breaches alleged [by the plaintiffs] clearly would not exist but for the contractual relationship between the parties." Id. at *12 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The Alabama Supreme Court observed that "the proper avenue for seeking redress when contractual duties are breached is a breach-of-contract claim, not a wantonness claim," and recognized that "federal courts applying Alabama law have repeatedly rejected attempts to assert wantonness claims based on a lender's actions handling and servicing a mortgage once the mortgage is executed." Id. at *12. Shepherd then block-quoted two full paragraphs from this Court's opinion in James v. Nationstar, including the precise aspects of James set forth supra, and concluded, "The James court has correctly stated Alabama law as it applies to claims alleging that lenders have acted wantonly with regard to servicing and handling mortgages." Shepherd, 2015 WL 7356384, at *13.

Wells Fargo's argument for dismissal of Count Four is a straightforward application of Shepherd and James. In particular, Wells Fargo maintains that the Shedds' pleading demonstrates that their wantonness claim arises from duties created by the underlying contract documents, and is based on loan servicing functions such as allocating payments, making telephone calls about the status of the loan, reporting the Shedds' purported delinquency, assessing fees, reporting mortgage interest, and managing hazard insurance for the property.

C. Plaintiffs' Attempt to Distinguish this Case from Shepherd/James.

In response, the Shedds argue that this case is distinguishable from the likes of Shepherd and James because Count Four does not allege that Wells Fargo wantonly breached duties owed under the note or mortgage, but instead hinges on Wells Fargo's purported failure to perform promises made in the November 21, 2011 letter. This proposed distinction fails. As an initial matter, plaintiffs' position does not accurately characterize their wantonness claim. Recall that Count Four ascribes wantonness to Wells Fargo's actions of continuing to report the Shedds as delinquent, continuing to undertake collection efforts, failing to keep open a "bankruptcy workstation," misallocating payments, assessing fees and charges improperly, failing to report Form 1098 mortgage interest deductions, wrongfully force-placing hazard insurance, and so on. The November 21 letter, by contrast, references precious few of these functions; instead, the Shedds appear to be relying exclusively on a single sentence in that letter wherein Wells Fargo wrote, "Bankruptcy workstation will now remain open until July 2013, which will allow WFHM to accept payments and stop the collection calls." (Doc. 74-1, at 21.) Most of Count Four has nothing to do with the November 21 letter, but pleads that Wells Fargo wantonly performed typical loan servicing functions stemming from the mortgage and loan documents. It is disingenuous, then, for the Shedds to insist that their wantonness claim is grounded solely in fresh duties assumed via the November 21 letter, as opposed to general loan-servicing responsibilities undertaken by Wells Fargo pursuant to the underlying mortgage documents.7

More fundamentally, the Shedds' argument misapprehends the Shepherd / James line of authorities. Contrary to plaintiffs' position, those decisions do not turn on the existence of an express contract between loan servicer and borrower. After all, in numerous mortgage-loan servicing contexts, no such express, direct contracts exist. Rather, these authorities rest on the uncontroversial premise that the relationship between servicer and borrower is grounded in the underlying loan transaction, inasmuch as the duties and breaches ascribed to the mortgage servicer "clearly would not exist but for the contractual relationship between the parties." Shepherd, 2015 WL 7356384, at *12.8 Were it not for the mortgage and the promissory note, Wells Fargo would have had no duties to the Shedds at all; indeed, the entire raison d'etre of their interactions was the underlying mortgage documents. Wells Fargo's obligations vis a vis servicing the Shedds' loan were plainly based upon the mortgage and stem from the mortgage and promissory note, as opposed to a duty of reasonable care owed to the general public. Plaintiffs' Count Four complains that Wells Fargo wantonly collected payments, misallocated payments, assessed improper fees and charges, reported the Shedds' mortgage interest deduction incorrectly, mishandled hazard insurance for the property, and so on. These are mortgage-servicing tasks rooted in the underlying mortgage documents, not broader duties of reasonable care owed to the public.9 As such, the Shedds' wantonness claim falls neatly within the paradigm exemplified by the long line of federal authorities cited in James (and embraced by the Alabama Supreme Court in Shepherd).

As mentioned, the heart of the Shedds' opposition to Wells Fargo's Rule 12(c) Motion as it relates to Count Four is their insistence that the wantonness claim is legally viable because "Wells Fargo created a duty it did not otherwise owe in its November 21, 2011 written promise to stop calling the Shedds, and recklessly breached it by telephoning them numerous times after promising not to do so." (Doc. 200, at 6.)10 But the Shedds' own words underscore the contract-based nature of the relationship and the contractual origins of any purported duty owed by Wells Fargo, as plaintiffs refer to a "written promise" as the source of such duty. More broadly, plaintiffs' argument overlooks the fundamental point that Wells Fargo's telephone calls about the loan were part and parcel of its mortgage servicing responsibilities that, again, stemmed from the underlying mortgage and promissory note. Wells Fargo's duty properly to service the mortgage, of which a duty to refrain from abusive collection practices may be a part, was created by — and arises from — the mortgage documents. Any collection calls made by Wells Fargo stem from those contractual documents, just as any other servicing responsibilities would be. To put it in the Shepherd vernacular, the Shedds' relationship with Wells Fargo is based upon the mortgage and is therefore a contractual one, because the duties and breaches asserted by the Shedds (including alleged wanton collection calls) would not exist but for the contractual relationship and Wells Fargo's loan-servicing obligations.

It is not persuasive to respond, as the Shedds do, that Judge Butler's prior rulings on the viability of contract claims in this action somehow vindicate the validity of Count Four.11 The Shedds' characterization of Judge Butler's Order dated October 26, 2015, as a definitive holding that no contract exists is misguided and inaccurate. In fact, that Order made no grand pronouncements that there were no contracts between Wells Fargo and the Shedds, but simply pointed out defects in plaintiffs' pleading of such a contract. (See doc. 105, at 10.) Similarly, his Order of May 16, 2016 was predicated on the legal principle that Wells Fargo's status as owner of Monument did not confer upon it standing to sue the Shedds (independently of Monument) to enforce Monument's contracts. (See doc. 201, at 2-3.) Simply put, there has been no conclusive ruling in these proceedings that no contract exists between Wells Fargo and the Shedds. Moreover, nothing in the line of authorities described supra suggests that a non-actionable "wanton servicing of a mortgage claim" may somehow be resuscitated and become viable if accompanying contract claims are dismissed for pleading defects. Stated differently, the oft-repeated principle that Alabama does not recognize a cause of action for wanton servicing of a mortgage is not conditioned on whether the borrower ultimately prevails in his or her breach of contract claims against the servicer; rather, the legal determination that no claim for wanton servicing of a mortgage exists in Alabama holds true regardless of whether the plaintiff succeeds or fails in attempting to plead contract claims against the servicer.

In sum, despite plaintiffs' protestations that their wantonness claim is unique, Count Four reads very much like numerous other claims for wanton servicing of a mortgage that federal and state courts have rejected as not being cognizable under Alabama law. Try though they might, plaintiffs cannot avoid the fundamental truth that Count Four ascribes wantonness to the manner in which Wells Fargo performed various core loan servicing functions (i.e., allocating payments, calling the borrower to discuss the loan's purportedly delinquent status, assessing fees and charges, reporting mortgage interest deductions, placing hazard insurance, and the like) on the Shedds' loan. All of those core functions arise from, and are grounded in, the underlying mortgage and promissory note.12 Accordingly, under the reasoning of James and Shepherd and numerous other like-minded authorities, the Court concludes that the Shedds' wantonness claim against Wells Fargo is not actionable, as a matter of law. The Rule 12(c) Motion will be granted as to Count Four.

IV. Count Sixteen (FDCPA).

In Count Sixteen of the Third Amended Complaint, the Shedds assert a claim for violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692 et seq. ("FDCPA"). That claim alleges that Wells Fargo was a "debt collector" who violated the FDCPA by (i) making telephone calls to the Shedds even when it knew they were represented by counsel, in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1692c(a)(2); (ii) falsely representing the character, amount or legal status of the Shedds' debt, in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1692e(2)(A), by overstating the amounts owed; and (iii) engaging in unfair practices by collecting amounts not expressly authorized by agreement or permitted by law, in violation of § 1692f(1). Wells Fargo seeks dismissal of Count Sixteen on the ground that it is not a "debt collector" within the statutory definition of the term.

Congressional findings and the declaration of purpose accompanying the FDCPA specify that the statute's purpose is "to eliminate abusive debt collection practices by debt collectors." 15 U.S.C. § 1692(e). Thus, a threshold requirement for liability in Count Sixteen is that the Shedds must establish that Wells Fargo is a "debt collector" within the meaning of the FDCPA. See, e.g., Davidson v. Capital One Bank (USA), N.A., 797 F.3d 1309, 1313 (11th Cir. 2015) ("There is no dispute that § 1692e applies only to debt collectors."); Harris v. Liberty Community Management, Inc., 702 F.3d 1298, 1302 (11th Cir. 2012) ("The Act's restrictions apply only to `debt collectors,'" as defined in the statute). "A `debt collector' is a term of art in the FDCPA." Ausur-El ex rel. Small, Jr. v. BAC (Bank of America) Home Loan Servicing LP, 448 Fed.Appx. 1, 2 (11th Cir. Sept. 21, 2011). Subject to certain enumerated exclusions, the FDCPA defines the term "debt collector" to mean "any person [1] who uses any instrumentality of interstate commerce or the mails in any business the principal purpose of which is the collection of any debts, or [2] who regularly collects or attempts to collect . . . debts owed or due or asserted to be owed or due another." 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(6).

Wells Fargo invokes two statutory exemptions to this definition of debt collector. First, the FDCPA expressly excludes from the ambit of the term debt collector "any officer or employee of a creditor while, in the name of the creditor, collecting debts for such creditor." 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(6)(A). Second, the FDCPA carves out an exemption from debt collector status for "any person while acting as a debt collector for another person, both of whom are related by common ownership or affiliated by corporate control, if the person acting as a debt collector does so only for persons to whom it is so related or affiliated and if the principal business of such person is not the collection of debts." 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(6)(B).

With respect to § 1692a(6)(A), Wells Fargo reasons that it falls within the "creditor" exception to the FDCPA because Wells Fargo owns Monument, which in turn owns the debt, thereby rendering Wells Fargo a creditor covered by the § 1692a(6)(A) exemption. The factual allegations on which this argument rests find considerable support in the Third Amended Complaint. In that pleading, the Shedds allege that defendant Monument "claims to be the assignee of the promissory note" executed by Pamela Shedd, and that Monument "is owned by one member, which in turn has one member, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A." (Doc. 152, ¶ 4.) The Third Amended Complaint expressly states that the Shedds' mortgage "is ultimately an asset of defendant Wells Fargo." (Id.) Plaintiffs plead the point in the plainest of terms by alleging that "Wells Fargo, through its corporate ownership of subsidiaries, is today the ultimate owner of Monument and thus of the loan and mortgage." (Id., ¶ 12 (emphasis added).) Finally, that same pleading goes on to concede that "Wells Fargo and Monument are both owned by Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., and thus the distinction between Wells Fargo as a `debt collector' . . . and Monument as the `creditor' . . . is not applicable for purposes of liability under the FDCPA." (Id., ¶ 186.)

The Complaint's portrayal of Wells Fargo as owner of the loan and mortgage is reinforced by the Answer filed by defendants Monument and Wells Fargo, wherein "Monument admits that it is the owner of the subject promissory note and mortgage, and that Wells Fargo is the owner of the subject promissory note and mortgage by virtue of its ownership of Monument." (Doc. 164, ¶ 4.)13 The Answer further states that "the [Shedds'] promissory note and mortgage were . . . transferred and assigned to Monument, which was thereafter acquired and is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Wells Fargo." (Id., ¶ 6.) Finally, the Answer provides that "Wells Fargo admits that as the owner of Monument, it is the owner of the subject loan." (Id., ¶ 186.)

Because comparison of the averments in the competing pleadings reveals no dispute of fact on this point, the Court accepts for purposes of the pending Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings that defendant Monument is the owner of the Shedds' promissory note and mortgage, that Monument is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wells Fargo, and that Wells Fargo thus owns the promissory note and mortgage (i.e., they are an asset of Wells Fargo).14 Based on these undisputed facts, Wells Fargo's contention that it is a creditor for FDCPA purposes and therefore falls within the creditor exception found at § 1692a(6)(A) appears meritorious on its face. After all, the statute defines "creditor" as including "any person . . . to whom a debt is owed," at least where such person did not receive assignment or transfer of defaulted debt "solely for the purpose of facilitating collection of such debt for another." 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(4). Based on the repeated, consistent allegations in both sides' pleadings that Wells Fargo owns the Shedds' debt, it cannot reasonably be disputed for Rule 12(c) purposes that Wells Fargo is a person to whom that debt is owed, thereby rendering it a "creditor" under the FDCPA.

Plaintiffs' only argument in opposition to Wells Fargo's invocation of the § 1692(a)(6)(A) exemption for FDCPA coverage is that such exemption is confined to "any officer and employee" of a creditor, and is not available to a creditor entity itself. (Doc. 200, at 10-11.)15 The Shedds' argument tracks the literal language of the statute, which provides that the FDCPA does not apply to "any officer or employee of a creditor while, in the name of the creditor, collecting debts for such creditor." 15 U.S.C. § 1692a(6)(A). However, abundant authority has construed this exemption as reaching creditors themselves, not just their officers or employees. See, e.g., Kimber v. Federal Financial Corp., 668 F.Supp. 1480, 1484 (M.D. Ala. 1987) ("it is apparent from the statute's legislative history that Congress intended the creditor exclusion to cover not only officers and employees of creditors but creditors themselves").16 Plaintiffs' objection, unsupported by any citations to case authorities, that the § 1692a(6)(A) exemption is confined to officers and employees of creditors, and does not cover creditors, is refuted by this extensive decisional authority.

In sum, then, Wells Fargo seeks dismissal of the Shedds' FDCPA claims on the ground that the pleadings establish that Wells Fargo lies within the "creditor" exemption found at 15 U.S.C. § 1692(a)(6)(A). Well-pleaded, undisputed factual allegations in both sides' pleadings confirm that Wells Fargo owns the Shedds' loan and mortgage, such that it is a creditor under the FDCPA. Plaintiffs' only counterargument is that the § 1692(a)(6)(A) exemption is limited to employees and officers of a creditor, and is unavailable as a matter of law to a creditor itself; however, numerous (and apparently unanimous) case authorities are to the contrary. Because the pleadings establish that Wells Fargo is a creditor and therefore exempt from the FDCPA, Count Sixteen is properly dismissed.

V. Conclusion.

For all of the foregoing reasons, it is ordered as follows:

DONE and ORDERED.