PBC cancer patient sues black;b

A Palm Beach County woman is suing her home loan servicer for harassment. The woman, Angela Birster, purchased her Jupiter Farms home for $200,000 in 2002 but fell behind on her mortgage payments after being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Birster has accused American Home Mortgage Servicing of violating state and federal consumer collection laws and intentionally inflicting emotional distress with incessant phone calls that harmed her health, even after she sent the company a cease-and-desist notice asking all calls to go through her attorney. By law, debt collectors are forbidden from using abusive language or from calling “with such frequency as can reasonably be expected to harass the debtor.” Birster and her husband, Paul, took out a $377,200 mortgage on the property in 2006. A foreclosure notice was filed in February 2009. [Palm Beach Post]