The Middle District of Tennessee denied a defendant’s summary judgment motion in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) case, clearing the way for a lawsuit claiming that the defendant was secondarily liable under an agency theory for calls made by a third-party call service even though a principal-agent relationship was disclaimed by contract.
On September 21, the Eastern District of Wisconsin denied a motion to partially dismiss a class action complaint alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), holding that the Do Not Call provision of the TCPA applies to text messages.
According to a recent report by WebRecon, court filings under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), and Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) were back up for the month of July. Complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) were also up for the month.
In Perrong v. Bradford et al, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant, an elected official, violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by calling his residential phone using a prerecorded message and an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS). He further alleged that his telephone number was registered with both the national and Pennsylvania Do Not Call registries.
Last year, a professional plaintiff obtained a judgment of over $828k in a case alleging 104 calls in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The district court in the Northern District of West Virginia found that the individual and corporate defendants failed to respond “fulsomely and accurately” to discovery requests and to comply with court orders pertaining to those requests. As a sanction, the district court entered a default judgment against them.
According to a recent report by WebRecon, court filings under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) were slightly up while filings under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) remained unchanged for the month of July. Complaints filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) were down for the month.
On August 16, a coalition of seven state attorneys general (AG) announced a settlement with participants alleged to be involved in a “massive” robocall operation. The stipulated order, which names Scott Shapiro, Michael T. Smith, Jr., and Health Advisors of America (defendants), permanently bans Shapiro and Smith from initiating or facilitating robocalls; working in or with companies that make robocalls; and engaging in telemarketing. The settlement also requires the defendants to make monetary payments to the coalition, which is comprised of AGs from the states of Arkansas, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, and Texas (the AGs).
On August 8, a unanimous panel of the Ninth Circuit issued a decision affirming a district court’s partial dismissal judgment entered in Trim v. Reward Zone USA LLC, holding that text messages did not use prerecorded voices under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) because they did not include audible components.
More than two years after the Supreme Court’s opinion in Facebook v. Duguid, courts and litigants continue to wrestle with the statutory definition of “automatic telephone dialing system” (ATDS) under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The debate centers on footnote 7 in Facebook, wherein the Supreme Court ostensibly embraced the proposition that an ATDS includes dialing systems that employ random or sequential number generators (RSNGs) to index and/or order telephone numbers for later dialing, but do not themselves generate the telephone numbers to be dialed. A recent opinion issued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado illustrates the ongoing controversy surrounding footnote 7 and its impact on current and future TCPA claims.
In Wiley v. American Financial Network, Inc., a district court judge in the Central District of California denied a motion for class certification in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) case, finding the defendant provided evidence suggesting the plaintiff invited the calls.