CVS Pharmacy has agreed to pay $15 million to settle long-running claims asserted by a nationwide class of consumers who allegedly received unsolicited flu shot reminder calls. The parties filed a motion for preliminary approval of the class settlement this week in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The underlying
On July 24, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed new, comprehensive robocall reform. Passed by a vote of 429-3, the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act (“SBRA”) would give the Federal Communications Commission novel methods to enforce existing anti-robocall laws in addition to allowing the FCC to go after violators more strictly. Beyond giving the FCC the
On July 16, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed a decision from the Eastern District of Missouri awarding $32 million in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action. Significantly, in doing so, the Court upheld the district court’s decision to limit the jury’s award to $10 per call for a
The Northern District of California recently granted a motion to compel arbitration in a putative class action brought under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. In doing do, it enforced an arbitration provision that had been provided to the plaintiff by way of a hyperlink in an e-mail confirming her purchase of a subscription to an
On June 14, an Eastern District of North Carolina judge issued the first opinion within the Fourth Circuit addressing the impact of ACA International on the definition of an automatic telephone dialing system, or “ATDS.” In Snow v. GE, Judge Flanagan dismissed plaintiff Marian Snow’s complaint because she failed to allege facts “permitting an
On June 25, the Federal Trade Commission announced a partnership with law enforcement to target illegal robocalls, including 94 actions aimed at operations around the nation that are responsible for more than a billion robocalls. “Operation Call it Quits” is aimed at reducing the number of pre-recorded telemarketing calls and includes new information aimed at
On June 20, the Supreme Court issued an uneventful opinion in the highly anticipated case PDR Network LLC, et al. v. Carlton & Harris Chiropractic, No. 17-1705. The case, which we discussed in depth here, was primed to give TCPA litigants much-needed guidance regarding the impact of Federal Communications Commission rules and regulations
On June 12, a Northern District of Illinois judge ordered loan servicer and debt collector Real Time Resolutions, Inc. to distribute $261,815.82 in unclaimed funds to class members, rather than donating the funds to charity as a cy pres award. In doing so, the Court settled a dispute between the parties as to the proper
Last fall, Troutman Sanders reported that the Federal Communications Commission released its final report and order creating a reassigned numbers database to block robocalls. The FCC has now issued formalized policies to allow carriers to block calls by default using “reasonable analytics.”
The final version of the ruling is largely unchanged from the proposed version.
On June 6, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved a declaratory ruling affirming that voice service providers may, as the default setting for phones, block robocalls. This aggressive position means that service providers are strongly encouraged to use reasonable call analytics to block calls before those calls even reach a consumer’s phone.
While the FCC