12 C.F.R. § 226.8(b)(5) (italics ours). The plaintiff debtors also rely upon Franklin v. First Money, Inc., 599 F.2d 615 (5th Cir. 1979) (disclosure of default charge inadequate as indefinite, rather than meeting Regulation Z's requirement that "the amount" or "method of computing the amount" be stated) and Ballew v. Associates Financial Services Company of Nebraska, 450 F. Supp. 253 (D.Neb. 1976) (creditor's statement did not disclose that multiple default charges could be assessed for each month an installment became delinquent). Neither decision is apposite to the issue before us.

"[I]t is not a test for the constitutionality of a statute that it be so unambiguous that all judges will read the statute in only one way." Franklin v. First Money, Inc., 427. F. Supp. 66, 69-70 (E.D. La. 1976), aff'd 599 F.2d 615 (5th Cir. 1979). If a statute gives a defendant "sufficient warning" that its conduct is unlawful, then "the statute is constitutional as applied to [the defendant]." United States v. Nat'l Dairy Prods. Corp., 372 U.S. 29, 33 (1963).

Although case law in this area is somewhat sparse, courts have found that both types of damages are available. See Ransom v. S S Food Center, Inc., of Florida, 700 F.2d 670, 677 (11th Cir. 1983) (affirming award of actual and statutory damages); Wiley, 950 F. Supp. at 1114 ("TILA permits recovery of both actual and statutory, or liquidated, damages."); Hyde, 1994 WL 653504, at *3 (awarding actual and statutory damages); Dryden, 630 F.2d at 647 ("The statutory damages are explicitly a bonus to the successful TILA plaintiff, designed to encourage private enforcement of the Act, and a penalty against the defendant, designed to deter future violations."); Franklin v. First Money, Inc., 427 F. Supp. 66, 72 (E.D.La. 1976) (finding "plaintiff may recover both actual damages and the statutorily fixed civil penalty" and "that the drafters of the [TILA] did not intend that the civil penalty should approximate actual damages"), aff'd 599 F.2d 615 (5th Cir. 1979). Finally, the court notes that defendants have failed to come forward with any case law or other authority which supports their theory that statutory damages and actual damages are mutually exclusive remedies.

The fact that the TCPA establishes as a remedy a damages award of $500, even when actual monetary damages is less than $500, does not itself make the award excessive and unreasonable. See Williams, 251 U.S. at 66, 40 S.Ct. at 73 (no requirement that statutory penalty "be confined or proportioned to his loss or damages; for, as it is imposed as a punishment for the violation of a public law, the Legislature may adjust its amount to the public wrong rather than the private injury . . .") (citations omitted); Franklin v. First Money, Inc., 427 F. Supp. 66, 72, n. 14 (E.D.La. 1976) (noting that "Congress has not flinched, in other areas of the law, from exacting damages which do not necessarily reflect actual damages"), aff'd, 599 F.2d 615 (5th Cir. 1979). In fact, statutorily-prescribed minimum damage awards are permissible even where there is no proof of any actual damages.

[N]either absolute uniformity of interpretation, nor total absence of ambiguity is semantically or practically achievable — or, it necessarily follows — constitutionally required.Franklin v. First Money, Inc., 427 F. Supp. 66, 69-70 (E.D.La. 1976), aff'd, 599 F.2d 615 (5th Cir. 1979) (citations omitted). By these standards, article 2315.3 withstands the defendants' attack.