A Texas federal court recently granted summary judgment for the defendant in a TCPA putative class action, finding that prerecorded calls to schedule a pest inspection were informational rather than telemarketing. Bradford v....more
The Ninth Circuit recently rejected the argument that a text message qualifies as an “artificial or prerecorded voice” under the TCPA. See Trim v. Reward Zone USA LLC, 2023 WL 5025264, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 20445 (9th Cir....more
The Florida Senate passed HB 761 late yesterday by a 29-10 vote, less than a week after the bill sailed through the Florida House by a 99-14 vote. As we previously reported, passage of this bill paves the way for significant...more
The Middle District of Florida partially rejected a plaintiff’s motion for entry of final default judgment in Brown v. Care Front Funding, No. 8:22-cv-02408-VMC-JSS, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60879 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 6, 2023),...more
5/3/2023
/ ATDS ,
Auto-Dialed Calls ,
Do Not Call List ,
FCC ,
Florida ,
Private Right of Action ,
Robocalling ,
State and Local Government ,
TCPA ,
Telemarketing ,
Unsolicited Phone Calls
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, Judge James C. Dever III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina handed down a decision of first impression for that court: the FCC’s do-not-call rule, 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(d), creates...more
The Seventh Circuit has reversed a decision from last year by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissing a TCPA claim for lack of personal jurisdiction over an alleged principal of the caller. ...more
On January 6, 2021, the District of Maryland dismissed a TCPA claim (and a derivative claim under Maryland’s MDTPCA) against Discount Power, Inc. (“Discount”). See Worsham v. Discount Power, Inc., No. 20-0008, 2021 WL 50922...more
Last week, the District of Nevada contributed to a growing consensus among Ninth Circuit district courts that TCPA liability generally does not extend to companies that produce equipment used to place unlawful calls—such as...more
12/16/2020
/ Auto-Dialed Calls ,
Consumer Litigation ,
Contacts List ,
Customers ,
Dismissals ,
Lack of Jurisdiction ,
Robocalling ,
State and Local Government ,
TCPA ,
Telemarketing ,
Text Messages ,
Vicarious Liability
The Central District of California recently decertified a class of TCPA plaintiffs because consent issues were so individualized that the plaintiffs could not satisfy the predominance requirement. Trenz v. On-Line...more
The District of Oregon recently found that a $925,220,000 damages award was not unconstitutionally excessive, reasoning that due process does not limit the aggregate statutory damages that can be awarded in a class action...more
We have previously written about decisions that dismissed TCPA claims because plaintiffs could not allege or prove facts establishing that the party making the offending calls was acting as an agent for the named defendant....more
On June 25, 2020, the FCC issued a Declaratory Ruling that granted a Petition that had been filed in 2018 by the P2P Alliance—a “coalition of providers and users of peer-to-peer (P2P) text messaging services.” The Petition...more
It can fairly be said that the statutory definition of “automatic telephone dialing system” (“ATDS”) has generated far more questions than answers—for courts and litigants alike. This is especially true in the wake of ACA...more
The Northern District of Illinois recently entered summary judgment against a group of plaintiffs because it found the system at issue was not an ATDS.
In Smith v. Premier Dermatology, No. 17-3712, 2019 WL 4261245 (N.D....more
10/3/2019
/ ATDS ,
Auto-Dialed Calls ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Prior Express Consent ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Robocalling ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
Summary Judgment ,
TCPA ,
Telecommunications ,
Telemarketing ,
Text Messages
In Golan v. FreeEats.com, Inc., No. 17-3156 (8th Cir. July 16, 2019), the Eighth Circuit affirmed a trial court’s radical, post-trial reduction of damages in a TCPA case.
Although the trial court originally awarded the...more
The Northern District of Illinois recently denied a motion to compel arbitration in a putative class action, and in doing so found that the defendants failed to show that the plaintiff had agreed to arbitrate the dispute when...more
7/16/2019
/ Arbitration ,
Clickwrap Agreements ,
Consumer Contracts ,
Contract Terms ,
Hybrid Contract ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Motion to Compel ,
Telemarketing ,
Terms and Conditions ,
Terms of Service ,
Websites