Elizabeth Panzarella v. Navient Solutions, LLC, No. 18-3735, 2020 WL 3250508 (E.D. Pa. June 16, 2020)
Two Plaintiffs filed suit relating to calls Defendant made when a relative’s loan became delinquent. Defendant moved for summary judgment on Plaintiffs’ Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227 (“TCPA”) claims, arguing that the calls were not made using an Automatic Telephone Dialing System (“ATDS”). The TCPA prohibits, in part, calls to a person’s cell phone using an ATDS without their prior express consent. The TCPA defines an ATDS as “equipment that ...
Whittaker v All Reverse Mortgage Inc.. No. CV 20-08016-PCT-DLR, 2020 WL 28229785 (D. Ariz. May 29, 2020)
Plaintiff filed a putative class action, alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227, (TCPA) by placing calls and sending text messages using an Automatic Telephone Dialing System (ATDS). Defendant moved to stay the case pending a ruling by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Barr v AAPC, 140 S.Ct. 812 (Jan. 10, 2020). Plaintiff opposed the Motion, arguing that the decision in AAPC was irrelevant to the merits of the instance case and that ...
Vanessa Wright v. USAA Savings Bank, No. 2:19-cv-00591 WBS CKD, 2020 WL 2615441 (E.D. Cal. May 22, 2020)
Plaintiff, who had a credit card account with Defendant for approximately 18 years, retained counsel to address financial issues facing his household. Counsel prepared a letter of representation and revocation of consent to call Plaintiff, which he sent to Defendant’s headquarters via certified mail. The confirmation notice associated with the letter verified that it was “delivered to the front desk, reception area, or mail room . . . In LAS VEGAS, NV 89169.” Defendant ...
Medley v. Dish Network, LLC, No. 8:16-cv-02534-CEH-CPT (11th Cir. May 1, 2020).
Plaintiff entered into a contract, providing her cell phone number and expressly authorizing Defendant “to contact [her] regarding [her] DISH Network account or to recover any unpaid portion of [her] obligation to DISH, through an automated or predictive dialing system or prerecorded messaging system.” Plaintiff’s counsel sent Defendant three faxes noting the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s (TCPA) prohibition again making any call to their client using an automatic telephone ...
A .pdf copy of the Gadelhak opinion can be found here.
My last blog post (found here) provided a background of the evolving definition of “automated telephone dialing system” (ATDS) under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and described the FCC’s long-running effort to expand the scope of the term. In recent times, the FCC’s repeated attempts to classify predictive dialers as an ATDS have come under scrutiny. First, the FCC faced issues with its interpretation in the case ACA Int’l v. FCC, 885 F.3d 687, 702-703 (D.C. Circ. 2018), which called into question the ...
A .pdf copy of the Glasser opinion can be found here.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA” or the “Act”) has limited telephone calls that can be placed using certain automated equipment since 1991. However, since passage of the Act there has been considerable debate about the type of automated equipment subject to the Act’s restrictions. The TCPA specifically restricts the use of any “automated telephone dialing system” ("ATDS"). The statute defines ATDS as “equipment which has the capacity—(A) to store or produce telephone numbers to be called using a ...
Lazar Shcherb v. Angi Homeservices, Inc., 19-cv-367 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 25, 2019)
Plaintiff filed suit against various corporate defendants alleging that they used an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) to call his cell phone in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) contending that, “[u]pon information and belief,” “when Defendants made these calls, [they] used equipment that had the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers . . . using a random or sequential number generator and/or a predictive dialer” with the capacity to dial such ...
Last month, in Duguid v. Facebook, Inc., 17-15320, 2019 WL 2454853 (9th Cir. June 13, 2019), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (“Ninth Circuit”) held that the debt collection exception to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii), violates the First Amendment because it is content-based and fails to pass strict scrutiny review. Duguid is not a Facebook user and did not consent to be contacted by Facebook. Duguid alleged that Facebook violated the TCPA in 2014 by sending text message notifications to his cell phone ...
Although courts across the country agree that “a plaintiff class should not be certified unless membership therein is ‘adequately defined and clearly ascertainable,’” the extent of what a plaintiff must provide to satisfy this “implicit requirement” to certification varies among circuit courts. See Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC v. Belcher, No. 18-90011, 2018 WL 3198552, at *3 (11th Cir. June 29, 2018) (citations omitted). For example, some circuit courts have construed the requirement to “mean[] a plaintiff must demonstrate an ‘administratively feasible’ ...
Ford v. Bluestem Brands, Inc., No. 18 CV 2695 (VB), 2019 WL 1046367 (S.D.N.Y. March 4, 2019)
Defendant provided Plaintiff with a $300 line of credit Plaintiff used to purchase a laptop from Defendant. Plaintiff claimed he received a letter from Defendant canceling his order, never received the laptop and Defendant could not prove he did. When Defendant sought to collect payment for the laptop, Plaintiff allegedly told Defendant he never received it, disputed the payment and required all future communications be by mail. Plaintiff claimed that despite this notification, he received ...