The 7th Circuit recently issued a decision in Smith v. First Hospital Laboratories, Inc., holding that in some “narrow situations” a fax offering to buy a product or service might be considered an advertisement under the TCPA...more
Recently, the Eleventh Circuit remanded a TCPA suit for the district court to rule on Article III standing, finding that the trial court should have addressed the standing issue because plaintiffs failed to plead the number...more
Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit concluded that the TCPA’s definition of “automatic telephone dialing system” (or “ATDS”) includes all dialing equipment with the present ability to generate random or...more
6/22/2022
/ ATDS ,
Auto-Dialed Calls ,
Cell Phones ,
Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Debt Collection ,
Discovery ,
Facebook Inc v Duguid ,
Robocalling ,
SCOTUS ,
Summary Judgment ,
TCPA
Earlier this month, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio clarified that a TCPA defendant need not maintain an internal do-not-call list and policies in order to invoke the “established business...more
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas recently held that unsolicited text messages that simply inform recipients of the availability of a free COVID-19 vaccine are protected by the “emergency purposes”...more
3/18/2022
/ Biden Administration ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Do Not Call List ,
Exemptions ,
FCC ,
Healthcare ,
Hospitals ,
State and Local Government ,
State of Emergency ,
TCPA ,
Texas ,
Text Messages ,
Vaccinations
Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas held that mobile phones may qualify as “residential telephones” when used (as the Complaint alleged) primarily for “personal, family, and household use,”...more
The District of New Jersey recently endorsed the view that calls regarding the availability of free services may plausibly qualify, at the pleadings stage, as “telephone solicitations,” and as such be subject to the Do Not...more
Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit applied the Supreme Court’s recent Ford Motor decision on personal jurisdiction to a Rule 12(b)(2) motion to dismiss a TCPA claim.
In Hood v. American Auto Care,...more
Courts in the Southern District of California and District of Arizona recently added to the line of decisions addressing ATDS pleading requirements in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Facebook v. Duguid. ...more
Earlier this week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri granted summary judgment for a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) that allegedly violated the TCPA by sending unsolicited advertisements via fax to...more
Three months after the Supreme Court’s landmark Facebook ruling, a growing number of trial courts have grappled with interpreting and applying the High Court’s directive. One of the more interesting decisions came out of the...more
8/2/2021
/ ATDS ,
Auto-Dialed Calls ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Do Not Call List ,
Facebook ,
Facebook Inc v Duguid ,
Random or Sequential Number Generator ,
Robocalling ,
SCOTUS ,
TCPA ,
Telemarketing
Recently, the Eastern District of Missouri added to the split among courts deciding whether they can hear TCPA claims alleging robocall violations that occurred when the now-invalidated government debt exception was part of...more
3/17/2021
/ ATDS ,
Auto-Dialed Calls ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Debt Collection ,
Exceptions ,
First Amendment ,
Government Debt-Exception ,
Robocalling ,
SCOTUS ,
Subject Matter Jurisdiction ,
TCPA
In the aftermath of Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, Inc.—the Supreme Court decision from July that held the TCPA’s government-debt exception to be an unconstitutional content-based restriction on...more
As readers of this blog may recall, the Middle District of North Carolina recently denied Dish Network’s request for reversion of $11 million in unclaimed funds from the jury-awarded damages in a TCPA class action trial. See...more
The Eastern District of Pennsylvania recently dismissed a serial TCPA plaintiff’s complaint sua sponte because the court concluded that it did not have personal jurisdiction over the defendant. Perrong v. REWeb Real Estate,...more
Another court decision reminds us that conclusory allegations that an agency relationship exists should not be sufficient to impute TCPA liability on the alleged beneficiary of a messaging campaign. Pleadings that lack...more
The FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau last week issued a declaratory ruling resolving a long-pending Petition on the question of whether certain healthcare-related calls, given their significance and value for...more
The Western District of Texas recently dismissed with prejudice a TCPA suit against Facebook brought by Colin Suttles, an individual who claimed he received thirty-two unsolicited texts from the company encouraging him to...more
As readers of this blog know, a robust Circuit split has developed regarding the meaning of an ATDS. The Second and Ninth Circuits have taken one approach, while the Third, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits have taken another....more
The Seventh Circuit recently issued an opinion with significant implications for defendants evaluating the prospects for due process challenges to awards of statutory damages under the TCPA, as well as defendants facing...more
Acknowledging that “effective communications with the American public” are “a critical component” of efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released, on its own motion, a...more
Acknowledging that “effective communications with the American public” is “a critical component” to efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released on its own motion, a...more
Recently, the Northern District of California joined other courts in more closely scrutinizing class certification motions in TCPA cases. In a case involving an automated phone call by a loan servicer regarding Plaintiff’s...more
Another court has observed that a billion-dollar aggregate liability under the TCPA likely would violate due process, adopting the Eighth Circuit’s reasoning that such a “shockingly large amount” of statutory damages would be...more
The Eleventh Circuit last week issued a common-sense ruling vacating class certification in a TCPA case—an area of the law where common sense does not always prevail. In Cordoba v. DIRECTV, LLC, No. 19-12077 (11th Cir. Nov....more
11/26/2019
/ Article III ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Decertification ,
DirectTV ,
Do Not Call List ,
FRCP Rule 23(b)(2) ,
Injury-in-Fact ,
Predominance Requirement ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Remand ,
Standing ,
TCPA ,
Vacated