The Eastern District of Michigan recently rejected an expansive interpretation of “sender” liability for unsolicited fax advertisements alleged to violate the TCPA, ruling that the mere inclusion of a company’s products on fax advertisements sent by a third party is not enough, standing alone, to saddle the company with liability for sending the faxes. Rather, to be liable for the faxes, the company must have taken affirmative steps to advertise its products through the faxes. This common-sense ruling, which further aligns Sixth and Seventh Circuit case law on this important issue, should provide ammunition for companies defending TCPA claims based on faxes sent by others in the distribution chain without the authorization or approval of the defendant. The Court also issued another in the litany of recent decisions confirming the limits on personal jurisdiction over foreign corporations. Continue reading
Author Archives: Bradley J. Andreozzi
Rite Aid Wins Summary Judgment in TCPA Class Action Over Flu Shot Reminder Calls
A New York U.S. District Court Judge granted summary judgment in favor of defendant Rite Aid Headquarters Corp. in a putative TCPA class action involving flu vaccine reminder calls. The opinion in Zani v. Rite Aid Headquarters Corp., 14-cv-9701, was recently unsealed after originally being filed under seal on March 30, 2017. In Zani, the court found that Rite Aid’s call to the plaintiff’s cellphone that used a pre-recorded voice to remind him to get his flu shot fell under what the Court referred to as the “Health Care Rule,” which exempted the call from the prior written consent requirement for telemarketing calls under the TCPA. Continue reading
Courts Continue to Grapple with Article III Jurisdictional Questions in the Wake of Campbell-Ewald v. Gomez
Article III of the U.S. Constitution limits the jurisdiction of federal courts to “cases” and “controversies.” U.S. Const., Art. III, § 2. Accordingly, as the Supreme Court recently clarified, “[i]f an intervening circumstance deprives the plaintiff of a personal stake in the outcome of the lawsuit, at any point during litigation, the action can no longer proceed and must be dismissed as moot.” Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 136 S. Ct. 663, 669 (2016). In the long-awaited decision, the Campbell-Ewald majority held that an unaccepted offer of complete relief under Rule 68, alone, does not moot a claim and thus does not deprive a court of Article III jurisdiction over the action. However, in so ruling, the majority emphasized that the fact that the offer was unaccepted was critical to its decision, thus leaving unanswered a host of scenarios in which a defendant makes an actual full payment or an unconditional tender to the plaintiff, and the court enters judgment for the plaintiff in that amount. Continue reading
FCC and District Court Provide Additional Clarity to the TCPA’s Emergency Purpose Exception
Over two years ago, we first argued that a pharmacist’s prescription refill reminder calls fell within the emergency purpose exception to the TCPA in Kolinek v. Walgreen Co. (N.D. Ill.). The TCPA, of course, prohibits many types of autodialed or pre-recorded/artificial voice calls to cell phones if made without the prior express consent of the called party, except where the calls are made “for emergency purposes.” 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A). In Kolinek, the court held at the motion to dismiss stage that further factual development was necessary to evaluate whether the emergency purpose exemption precluded plaintiff’s claims because the complaint did not allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of the calls. Although the case settled before the court had the opportunity to rule on the issue on summary judgment, the court acknowledged the viability of the emergency purposes defense as a basis for approving the class action settlement despite objections that the settlement fund was a tiny fraction of potential liabilities. Continue reading
First Amendment Protects Automated Calls Made for Political Campaigns in Arkansas
As we’ve previously discussed, while First Amendment challenges to the TCPA have largely been unsuccessful, First Amendment challenges to restrictions on calls or texts made in connection with political campaigns may fare differently. Further evidence of this distinction came last week, when a district court in the Eastern District of Arkansas declared Arkansas’s restriction on using automated or prerecorded telephone calls to “‘solicit[] information, gather[] data, or for any other purpose in connection with a political campaign’” unconstitutional as “a content-based regulation that does not survive strict scrutiny.” Gresham v. Rutledge, No. 16cv241, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97964, at *2-3 (E.D. Ark. July 27, 2016) (quoting Ark. Code Ann. § 5-63-204(a)(1)). Continue reading
The TCPA As Great Uniter? Democrats and Tea Party Republicans Join Forces, File Suit Seeking To Have The TCPA Declared Unconstitutional
Friday afternoons typically see a high volume of notices of new TCPA complaints. Those complaints usually offer little variation: while the names of the parties and counsel sometimes change, they all typically name businesses as defendants and challenge their compliance with the TCPA. Friday, May 13th was no different, except in one key respect: one of those new complaints names Attorney General Loretta Lynch as the defendant and challenges the TCPA itself. Continue reading
The Big Chill: How The FCC’s Reading Of The TCPA Violates The First Amendment And Demands The Impossible
As the defense bar’s preeminent public resource on TCPA litigation and regulation, TCPA Blog has been invited to contribute a regular column to Law360. In the first such column, Bradley Andreozzi, Michael Daly, and Justin Kay discuss how the FCC’s interpretations of the TCPA violate the First Amendment rights. They write:
For an agency charged with regulating communications, the Federal Communications Commission has shown itself to be remarkably indifferent to First Amendment rights. In its recent brief in the consolidated appeal from its July 2015 omnibus ruling on the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the FCC blandly assured the D.C. Circuit that “[e]very court” has held that the TCPA’s restrictions “easily pass muster under the First Amendment.” FCC Brief at 73-74. But it all but ignored that, rather than “directly challenge the TCPA’s constitutionality,” the petitioners in that appeal challenge the FCC’s “interpretations of the statute.” Id. at 72-73. On that issue, the D.C. Circuit will be writing on a clean slate, and the First Amendment challenges are serious.
They then highlight three serious First Amendment concerns, specifically that the FCC’s: (1) healthcare exemption restricts necessary speech; (2) recycled numbers ruling demands the impossible; and (3) ATDS interpretation is unconstitutionally vague.
Bradley Andreozzi and Justin Kay Discuss TCPA in Modern Healthcare
TCPA Blog contributors Bradley Andreozzi and Justin Kay were recently featured in a Modern Healthcare article about a class action targeting Prospect Medical Group’s Southern California Hospital at Culver City. The suit alleges that the hospital violated the TCPA when its patient department called the plaintiff’s cell phone without the requisite consent in an effort to collect on a debt for services rendered at the facility. The article examined how the hospital became one of the first providers to be sued following the Federal Communications Commission’s July 2015 Omnibus ruling that narrowed the FCC’s reading of the scope of the required prior express consent for automated calls to patients. Continue reading
Michigan Federal Court Dismisses TCPA Complaint and Rejects Plaintiff’s Conclusory ATDS Allegations
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan recently dismissed a TCPA complaint upon finding the plaintiff’s factual allegations insufficient to satisfy the pleading standards imposed by both Rule 8(a) and the Supreme Court’s opinions in Twombly and Iqbal. The Court’s order provides useful guidance concerning the oft-litigated issue of whether a complaint contains sufficient facts to plausibly allege a defendant’s use of an ATDS.
Internet Association Asks FCC To Distinguish Internet Platforms From Their Users For TCPA Purposes
In June, the Internet Association (“IA”)—which represents Internet giants such as eBay, Facebook, Google, Amazon, LinkedIn and Twitter, among others—suggested that the FCC clarify that Internet companies which “facilitate their users to communicate” are not “not caller[s] or sender[s] (or the initiator[s] of a call or text) for purposes of the TCPA.” In a letter dated June 11, 2015, the IA addressed what it viewed as an uncertainty under TCPA law: namely the extent to which any email and/or social media platform may potentially be liable under the TCPA for the calls or messages initiated by any one of the enormous number of users of the platform.