One of the most ambitious (i.e., bad) arguments ever made by a defendant in a TCPA case was rejected by the Western District of New York in Gerrard v. Acara Sol. Inc., 1:18-cv-1041, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 108038, 2019 WL 2647758 (W.D.N.Y. June 27, 2019). Acara Solutions argued their text messages with
A pro se plaintiff’s lawsuit brought pursuant to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act was dismissed by the District of New Jersey for lack of standing in Kraft v. Phelan Hallinan Diamond & Jones, P.C., U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126323 (D. N.J. July 30, 2019). Plaintiff Warren R. Kraft inherited real estate from his deceased
On September 12, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in a precedential ruling, held that courts are not required to hold an in-person hearing prior to granting a government’s request to dismiss a qui tam whistleblower’s federal False Claims Act (“FCA”) or Delaware False Claims Act (“DFCA”) suit. However, the Court
Scott Kelly, an associate in Troutman Sanders’ Consumer Financial Services practice, has been selected as one of Virginia Lawyers Media’s Up & Coming Lawyers for 2019. The “Up & Coming Lawyers” awards program, now in its fourth year, recognizes lawyers across the commonwealth who are making their mark within their first 10 years of practice.
A new court decision raises important compliance issues for creditors who use an internal debt collection unit: whether separately naming the unit in a document also naming the creditor in its main business name can cause confusion, giving rise to a claim under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
On September 4, a U.S. d
We are pleased to announce that Troutman Sanders attorney Ron Raether will be presenting during the NetDiligence Cyber Risk Summit at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in California. This conference features two full days of panel discussions by leading cyber experts who will share their insights on hot topics, trends, and cybersecurity concerns. Ron
Over the past year, nearly twenty amendments were introduced to modify the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”). Now that the deadline to introduce new amendments has passed, we can start to visualize what the CCPA will look like in its effective form. Despite many attempts to dramatically modify the scope, application, and enforcement
A federal judge in Alabama has approved a putative class-action settlement in the amount of $1.15 million against Compass Bank to resolve a case brought under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) on behalf of non-customers who received unsolicited auto-dialer survey calls from the bank.
The case, Robert Hossfield, and all others similarly situated, vs.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act discriminates between types of calls based on content: persons calling to seek collection of federal debts get an exemption from TCPA requirements, while other types of calls do not. Federal courts have split over whether this discrimination is constitutional, setting up in the long term a possible Supreme Court
On August 30, the California Senate Appropriations Committee failed to approve A.B. 1270 which would extend the California False Claims Act to include tax matters, joining Illinois and New York as the only states that allow whistleblowers to file claims against companies alleging violations of the tax code. Notably, the Federal False Claims Act specifically