Drozdowski v. Citibank, Inc., 2:15-cv-02786-STA-cgc (Aug. 31, 2016)
Husband and wife Plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit against Defendant regarding calls allegedly made to Plaintiffs' cell phones to collect debt owed on the husband's account after Plaintiffs purportedly revoked consent to be contacted. Defendant filed a Motion to Compel Arbitration, contending that Plaintiffs' claims had to be arbitrated on an individual, non-class basis. At issue were four credit card accounts, three of which belonged to the husband, one of which belonged to the wife and all of which ...
Dixon v. Monterey Fin. Services, Inc., No. 15-cv-03298 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 22, 2016)
At issue before the Court was Plaintiff's Amended Complaint, and Defendant's second motion to strike class definition as a fail-safe class. Noting that "[t]he fail-safe appellation is simply a way of labeling the obvious problems that exist when the class itself is defined in a way that precludes membership unless the liability of defendant is established," the Court concluded that the following class definition was an impermissible fail-safe class:
All Persons within the United States who received ...
Telephone Science Corp. v. Asset Recovery Solutions, LLC, No. 15-cv-5182, 2016 WL 4179150 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 8, 2016)
Plaintiff operates a service called "Nomorobo" designed to help consumers avoid incoming robocalls by analyzing calls made to its "honeypot" numbers using a specialized algorithm enabling it to distinguish between auto and manual dialed calls. Plaintiff filed suit against Defendant alleging that it received 12,240 robocalls between March 2014, and February, 2016, answering 747 of them. Plaintiff claimed to incur a $0.0075 charge for all calls answered ...
Stoops v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Civ. No. 3:15-83 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 12, 2016)
After granting summary judgment for lack of standing against a plaintiff who bought multiple cell phones and numbers for purposes of filing TCPA lawsuits, the Court was faced with a Motion to Amend Judgment wherein Plaintiff argued that dismissal for lack of standing mandated remand to state court for adjudication. At issue was whether a lack of prudential standing results in a lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Citing extensively from Hvizdak v. Citizens Bank of Pa., No. 14-cv-406 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 6, 2015), the ...
Colette Jenkins v. MGage, LLC, No. 1:14-cv-2791-WSD (N.D. Ga. Aug. 12, 2016)
Plaintiff filed this TCPA lawsuit after receiving 150 text messages over an approximately one year period during which she tried to stop the messages on 17 occasions. Defendant moved for summary judgment, contending the messages were not sent using an Automatic Telephone Dialing System (ATDS) but rather as a result of human intervention. Thus, Defendant argued, since it did not use an ATDS (a vital component of a TCPA claim) to send the messages, the claim should be dismissed.
Granting summary judgment in ...
On August 4, 2016, the FCC released a Declaratory Ruling confirming that schools and utilities making robo calls do not violate the TCPA under certain circumstances. The Ruling, addressed Petitions filed by Blackboard, Inc. and Edison Electric Institute and American Gas Association. Blackboard, Inc. requested that "all automated informational messages sent by an educational organization via a recipient's requested method of notification are calls made for an 'emergency purpose' and thus outside the requirements of the TCPA," including messages made for unexcused ...
Romero v. Department Stores National Bank, 15-cv-193-CAB-MDD (S.D. Cal. Aug. 5, 2016)
On the eve of trial, the Court dismissed Plaintiff's claims for lack of standing relying on the Supreme Court case of Spokeo v. Robbins. At issue in the case was Plaintiff's contention that Defendant called her more than 290 times using an Automatic Telephone Dialing System in violation of the TCPA. After the case was set for trial, Plaintiff prepared a pre-trial memorandum and the Court entered a pre-trial Order prepared by the parties. Neither document referenced any actual damages experienced by ...
Following the Supreme Court's ruling in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540 (U.S. May 16, 2016), it is clear that "Article III standing requires a concrete injury even in the context of a statutory violation," such that a plaintiff cannot "allege a bare procedural violation, divorced from any concrete harm, and satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement of Article III." Id. at 1549. Yet, the Court did not go so far as to rule that "the risk of real harm cannot satisfy the requirement of concreteness," and instead recognized that "the violation of a procedural right granted by statute can ...
On June 10, 2016, the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee recommended promulgation of a Final Rule pursuant to the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, containing the following consumer protections:
- Calls pursuant to the exception would only be permitted to be made to the debtors themselves, not to family, friends or others, including employers;
- The rule would apply to texts as well as to calls to cell phones;
- Calls would be allowed only when related to delinquent or defaulted debt, and only related to the debt status, and no telemarketing messages would be permitted to be included;
- The number of ...
American Association of Political Consultants, Inc. et al. v. Lynch, Civil Action No. 5:16-cv-00252 (E.D.N.C., May 12, 2016).
On May 12, 2016, five politically based organizations filed a suit against Loretta Lynch, in her official capacity as Attorney General of the United States seeking a declaratory judgment that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act's ("TCPA") restrictions on automated or prerecorded calls to cell phones are an unconstitutional violation of their First Amendment rights because the restrictions are content-based and cannot withstand strict scrutiny ...