NC Court of Appeals: Citibank v. Graudin- Credit Card Collection as an "Open Account", contrasted with an "Account Stated"

Summary: Citibank brought suit against the Debtor seeking to recover $5,108.89, which it  alleged was owed on a credit card, originally issued by AT&T Universal Card in 1995 and acquired by Citibank in 2002.  The Debtor disputed the amount owed, alleging that Citibank had changed the interest rate on the credit card without notifying him.  Citibank did not respond to the Debtor’s discovery seeking a copy of the original credit card agreement, asserting that the request sough "documents previously provided to ... Defendant and further, irrelevant, unduly burdensome, overly broad and costly given the needs of the case, the amount in controversy and the issues before the court."  The trial court granted summary judgment to Citibank. The Court of Appeals held that this was an "open account" as the parties "intend[ed] that the individual transactions [were] to be considered as a connected series rather than as independent of each other, a balance [was] kept by adjustments of debits and credits, and further dealings between the parties [were] contemplated."  Hudson v.  Game World, Inc., 126 N.C.App 139 (1997).  This is to be contrasted with an "account stated", which arises when a creditor submits a request to the debtor to settle an account and the debtor agrees to pay that amount.  An open account does not require an agreement as to the amount owed and accordingly the balance remains to be determined. As the Debtor challenged the amount owed throughout the case, a genuine issue of material fact remained and summary judgment was improper.  The case was remained to determine the appropriate interest rate under the applicable agreements. Comments: The language used by Citibank in its refusal to provide the original credit card agreement sounds strikingly familiar to the boilerplate included on many Proofs of Claim.  It is rather disingenuous for Citibank to bring suit for money owed, but then claim that proving its case is too burdensome.  It would also seem that there is growing impatience from the North Carolina Courts (and hopefully others), which are able to maintain, on a vastly smaller budget than Citibank has available,  documents dating back to the founding of the country, when credit card lenders bemoan their ability to retain records. Citibank v. Graudin- Credit Card Collection as an Open Account, contrasted with an Account Stated.PDF