In TCPA Blog’s latest Law360 column, contributors Eduardo Guzmán, Michael Daly and Anthony Glosson discuss the Fourth Circuit’s opinion in Lynn v. Monarch Recovery Management Inc. They explain that the opinion has analytical gaps, leaves unanswered questions, and does not mean that calls to residential VoIP-based telephony services should necessarily be treated differently than calls to other residential:
In short, unpublished opinion in Lynn v. Monarch Recovery Management Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit stated that the “call-charged provision” of the TCPA applied to debt collection calls made to a residential VoIP-based line. The plaintiffs’ bar responded by suggesting that the TCPA applies differently to so-called “VoIP calls,” and telemarketing vendors responded by marketing services that scrub all numbers assigned to VoIP carriers — a move that, given VoIP’s increasing popularity, could end up eliminating a substantial percentage of residential numbers. However, a more objective analysis of the opinion and the issues suggests that these reactions may be overstated, if not altogether misplaced.
They go on to explain that predictions about the decision’s consequences may be wrong because it: (1) is unpublished and nonprecedential; (2) involved a highly unusual fact pattern; and (3) has serious gaps in its interpretation of the scope and application of the “call-charged provision.
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