Faegre Drinker

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Sixth Circuit Vacates Denial of Class Certification in Blast Fax Case

In April, we reported on the denial of a class certification motion in a blast fax case in the Northern District of Ohio. On June 12, the Sixth Circuit vacated that order. A copy of the court’s order in In re Sandusky Wellness Center, LLC, No. 14-0301, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 12093 (6th Cir. June 12, 2014), is available here.

Plaintiff Sandusky Wellness Center (“Sandusky Wellness”) had alleged that defendants Wagner Wellness, Inc., and its owner, Robert Wagner (collectively “Wagner”), had violated Section 227 of the TCPA by purchasing a list of fax numbers from a third party and sending unsolicited advertisements via fax. See 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(C) (making it unlawful “to use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device to send, to a telephone facsimile machine, an unsolicited advertisement” unless certain exceptions apply).

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Offer of Judgment Served Hours Before Motion for Class Certification Filed Moots TCPA Claim

In Barr v. The Harvard Drug Grp., LLC, 13-62019, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79422 (S.D. Fla. June 11, 2014), the court found that an offer of judgment served via email mooted the plaintiff’s claim despite the filing of a motion for class certification later that same day.

The class action complaint alleged that the defendant sent faxes in violation of the TCPA. The defendant served an offer of judgment on the plaintiff’s attorneys via email on November 27, 2013, at 11:12 am and also via UPS. The defendant offered to pay $1,500 for each alleged violation of the TCPA, to pay any costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees, and to stipulate to an injunction and the entry of a judgment against it. At 3:25 pm that same day, the plaintiff moved for class certification.

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Eleventh Circuit Rejects “Intended Recipient” Interpretation of TCPA’s “Called Party” Language

The Eleventh Circuit recently ruled that the TCPA’s prohibition on prerecorded calling applies to wireless numbers that have been reassigned from a consenting subscriber to a new, presumably nonconsenting one, regardless of the caller’s knowledge of the reassignment. Breslow v. Wells Fargo Bank, No. 12-14564 (11th Cir. 2014). Currently, the Act permits businesses to place prerecorded telemarketing calls to wireless subscribers with “the prior express consent of the called party,” see 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A), but does not specify whether the term “called party” refers to the intended recipient of the call or the actual recipient.

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GroupMe Gets an FCC Green Light on Sending Administrative Texts to Confirm Interest in Joining Social Network Groups

Previous TCPA Blog posts have noted that the FCC has a growing backlog of petitions for rulemaking, expedited declaratory ruling, or petitions for clarification on numerous issues posed by the TCPA. [1] On a recent Friday, the FCC acted on two separate long pending petitions for expedited declaratory ruling.  This post highlights the FCC’s ruling on the petition filed by GroupMe, Inc./Skype Communications S.A.R.L. (“GroupMe”).

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FCC Grants Limited Package Delivery Notification “Prior Express Consent” Exemption

On March 27, 2014, the FCC granted, in part, a petition for expedited declaratory ruling filed by the Cargo Airline Association (“CAA”). (The FCC’s CAA Order can be found here.)  In its petition, the CAA asked the FCC: (1) to clarify that package delivery companies can rely upon representations from senders that the package recipient consents to receiving autodialed and prerecorded calls to a wireless telephone number for purposes of notifications regarding shipment of the package; (2) in the alternative, to declare that package delivery notifications are exempt from the TCPA’s requirement to obtain prior express consent before making autodialed or prerecorded calls to a wireless telephone number.

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N.D. Ohio Finds Putative Fax Blast Class Action Fails to Meet Commonality Requirement

A district court in the Northern District of Ohio recently denied a plaintiff’s motion for class certification in a TCPA blast fax case, finding that the proposed class failed to meet the commonality requirement under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)(2).  Specifically, the court noted that “the proposed class includes entities that requested the facsimiles and/or had prior business relations” with the defendants and that the faxes sent to those entities did not violate the TCPA.  A copy of the opinion in Sandusky Wellness Center, LLC v. Wagner Wellness, Inc., et al., No. 3:12 CV 2257, 2014 WL 1224418 (N.D. Ohio Mar. 24, 2014), is available here.

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Commissioner O’Reilly Calls for FCC Action on Backlog of Petitions

In a March 25, 2014 blog post titled “TCPA: It is Time to Provide Clarity,” Commissioner O’Reilly recognized the pressing need for clarity and called for the FCC to act “as soon as possible.” (Read entire post on the Official FCC Blog here).  Commissioner O’Reilly’s comments on the past year’s dramatic increase in TCPA litigation and the significant inventory of pending petitions echoes the concerns raised by many petitioners and highlights the fact that fear of litigation is discouraging businesses from offering communications services to consumers. (Prior blog posts addressing a number of the individual petitions filed before the FCC can be found here, here, and here.)  As a result, Commissioner O’Reilly points out, consumers are not receiving the “notifications and offers that they want and expect.”  This outcome is inconsistent with the balance “between protecting consumers from unwanted communications and enabling legitimate businesses to reach out to consumers that wish to be contacted” that Congress sought to achieve through the TCPA, and requires the FCC to “take a hard look at its own precedent” and “tackl[e] this backlog in a comprehensive manner.”

Two days after Commissioner O’Reilly’s remarks, the FCC granted in part two petitions for expedited declaratory ruling. (The FCC’s March 27, 2014 rulings are available here and here.)  The Commissioner’s blog post, in conjunction with the FCC’s recent rulings, may lend additional support to staying ongoing litigation proceedings pending agency action under the primary jurisdiction doctrine, as the Southern District of Texas and the Eastern District of California have already done.  (See our posts covering these decisions here and here.)

Court Stays TCPA Class Action until FCC Rules on Definition of “Called Party”

The Eastern District of California recently granted a motion to stay proceedings under the primary jurisdiction doctrine in Matlock v. United Healthcare Servs., Inc., No. 13-2206, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37612 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 20, 2014). It stayed the proceedings until the FCC rules on United Healthcare’s expedited petition to clarify the definition of “called party” under the TCPA’s prior express consent provision.

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TCPA Petitions Keep Pouring Into the FCC

As previously covered in other TCPA blog posts, the FCC maintains a range of TCPA rules addressing certain key elements of telemarketing and even non-telemarketing call activities that can implicate routine interactions between companies and their customers or prospective customers. The proper scope and interpretation of some of these rules continue to be the subject of newly filed petitions for clarification, declaratory ruling or even requests for outright waiver of certain FCC rules. We highlight here several of the more recent additions to the FCC’s already large compliment of pending TCPA petitions.

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Two California Federal Courts Send Putative TCPA Class Actions to Arbitration

Two federal district courts in California recently hit the brakes on putative TCPA class actions, granting the defendants’ motions to compel arbitration and informing the plaintiffs that, by signing contracts containing arbitration clauses, they relinquished any right to pursue TCPA claims through a class action.

In Mendoza v. Ad Astra Recovery Services, Inc., No. 2:13-cv-06922-CAS(JCGx), 2014 WL 47777 (Jan. 6, 2014 C.D. Cal.), plaintiff Miguel Mendoza sued an agent of a payday lending firm that contacted him regarding repayment of a loan. Mendoza, who had obtained a $255 payday loan from non-party Speedy Cash, alleged that he began receiving calls from defendant Ad Astra on his cell phone after he failed to repay the debt. When Mendoza did not answer these calls, Ad Astra allegedly left “voicemail messages using a pre-recorded or artificial voice.” He contended that such messages violated the TCPA. See 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A).

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