Photo of Virginia Bell Flynn

Virginia is a partner in the firm’s Consumer Financial Services practice and specifically within the Financial Services Litigation practice. She represents clients in federal and state court, both at the trial and appellate level in the areas of complex litigation and business disputes, health care litigation, including ERISA and out-of-network issues, and consumer litigation in over 21 states nationwide. As a result of new legal developments, she increasingly counsels clients to ensure they comply with the myriad of growing laws in the consumer law with a particular emphasis on the intersection of TCPA and HIPAA.

In Bemero v. Lloyd & McDaniel, PC, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted a motion to dismiss in a Federal Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) case where the Model Validation Notice (MVN) was undated, finding the plaintiff lacked standing because she did not allege a concrete injury.

The defendant

On May 2, the Florida legislature passed amendments to the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act (FTSA) that would drastically narrow its scope and presumably cut down on the number of class actions filed pursuant to it. The bill will take effect immediately after it is signed by Governor DeSantis.

Among other things, the proposed amendments would:

As discussed here, on April 7, the Washington State legislature passed HB 1051, also known as the Robocall Scam Protection Act, expanding the scope of existing provisions of Washington’s consumer protection laws regulating robocalls and telephone solicitations to prohibit abusive telephone communication practices. On April 20, Governor Inslee signed the bill into law. It

On April 13, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion affirming a district court’s summary judgment order on the grounds that under Borden v. eFinancial, LLC, discussed here, to qualify as an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) the telephone system must store or produce randomly or sequentially

As discussed here, administrators’ health plan benefit denial letters have recently been under scrutiny by the courts. For example, in D.K. et al. v. United Behavioral Health et al., the Tenth Circuit is reviewing a district court’s decision that health plan benefit denial letters must contain more fulsome discussions of the administrator’s determination

On April 7, the Washington State legislature passed HB 1051, also known as the Robocall Scam Protection Act, which expands the scope of existing provisions of Washington’s consumer protection laws regulating robocalls and telephone solicitations to prohibit abusive telephone communication practices. HB 1051 will become law once it is signed by Governor Inslee.

HB

In a recent decision, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted summary judgment in a Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) case where a bank promptly corrected inaccurate mortgage payment information furnished to three national consumer reporting agencies (CRAs).

In their complaint, the plaintiffs asserted FCRA claims against the bank holding

On April 4, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas declined to increase or treble the plaintiff’s $8,500 jury trial damages awarded under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) after failing to find that the defendant acted willfully or knowingly under TCPA § 227(c)(5)(B). Indeed, the judge cut the award to $6,500.

On April 3, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it has seized virtual currency worth an estimated $112 million linked to cryptocurrency investment scams. Seizure warrants for six virtual currency accounts were authorized by judges in the District of Arizona, the Central District of California, and the District of Idaho. The virtual currency

A federal district court in the Western District of New York recently denied in part a motion for summary judgment in a case alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) based on collection calls and prerecorded voice messages. Specifically, the court found the defendant had not provided sufficient evidence that the plaintiff provided