Michael P. Daly, Author at TCPA Blog

Michael Daly

Mike Daly has spent two decades defending, counseling and championing clients that interact with consumers. His practice focuses on defending class actions, handling critical motions and appeals, and maximizing the defensibility of marketing and enforceability of contracts. Clients large and small have trusted him to protect their businesses, budgets and brands in complex cases across the country.

View the full bio for Michael Daly at the Faegre Drinker website.

Articles by Michael Daly:

Despite Absence of Settlement, Unclaimed Funds To Be Distributed To Government Or Charity Rather Than Revert To Dish Network

Last week, the federal judge presiding over a class action against Dish Network (“Dish”) denied a request for reversion of $11 million in unclaimed funds, deciding instead that the funds—which were the product of a trial rather than a settlement—should escheat to the government or be donated to a charity. See Krakauer v. Dish Network, LLC, No. 14-0333 (M.D.N.C. Oct. 27, 2020).

In denying Dish’s request for reversion, the court explained that “[t]he TCPA is a deterrence statute, and reversion does not support th[at] statutory goal.” Id. at 10. It then cited cases for the proposition that unclaimed funds should not revert to a defendant if doing so would undermine the deterrence function of damages. Id. at 5 (citing In re Lupron Mktg. & Sales Practices Litig., 677 F.3d 21, 32-33 (1st Cir. 2012); Six Mexican Workers v. Ariz. Citrus Growers, 904 F.2d 1301, 1307 (9th Cir. 1990)).

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Single Fax Received by E-Mail Deemed Insufficient to Confer Article III Standing

As we have reported here and here, courts throughout the country, including most notably the Eleventh Circuit in Salcedo v. Hanna, have grappled with the question of whether a single unsolicited text message may constitute sufficient injury to satisfy the constitutional standing requirement in Article III. The Salcedo court held that one text message does not suffice.

But what about a single fax? That was the question recently presented to the Middle District of Florida in Daisy, Inc. v. Mobile Mini, Inc., No. 20-0017 (M.D. Fla. Sept. 24, 2020). The court similarly found that, at least under the relatively unique circumstances of the case, a single fax did not confer standing.

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Spooktacular Severability Ruling Raises Barr From The Dead, Buries TCPA Claims Arising Between November 2015 and July 2020

A few weeks ago, the Eastern District of Louisiana held that courts cannot impose liability under Sections 227(b)(1)(A) or (b)(1)(B) of the TCPA for calls that were made before the Supreme Court cured those provisions’ unconstitutionality by severing their debt collection exemptions. The first-of-its-kind decision reasoned that courts cannot enforce unconstitutional laws, and severing the statute applied prospectively, not retroactively. Plaintiffs privately panicked but publicly proclaimed that the Creasy decision was “odd” and would not be followed.

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Senators, State AGs, and Consumer-Protection Groups File Amicus Briefs Advocating Broad Interpretation of ATDS Definition

Last Friday, various elected officials and consumer-protection groups filed amicus briefs urging the Supreme Court to adopt the expansive interpretation of the ATDS definition for which Plaintiff Noah Duguid had advocated in a brief he filed the week before. The recent briefs and other filings in the case can be found here.

The Facebook case arises from a security-alert text message that was sent to an individual who had not consented to automated calls, and at long last presents the Court with the critical question of what is and is not an ATDS. (Recall that the FCC has said, and courts have either held or assumed, that text messages should be deemed “calls” for purposes of the TCPA.)

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Plaintiff in Facebook v. Duguid Files Supreme Court Brief Supporting Broad Interpretation of ATDS Definition

The Plaintiff in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid—the case that promises to resolve the growing circuit split over the TCPA’s definition of an ATDS—has filed his merits brief in the Supreme Court.

Recall that the TCPA defines an ATDS as equipment that has the capacity “(A) to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and (B) to dial such numbers.” 47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(1). With help from noted grammarian Bryan Garner, who signed the brief as his new co-counsel, Duguid argues that the language of the statute and the canons of construction make clear that the adverbial phrase “using a random or sequential number generator” modifies the verb “to produce” but not the verb “to store.” For example, he argues that the “distributive-phrasing canon” requires that modifying phrases apply only to words “which, by context, they seem most properly to relate.” Brief at 20. Because the verb “to store” does not in his view relate to the phrase “using a random or sequential number generator,” he argues that the Court need not interpret the phrase as modifying “to store.” Id.; see also id. at 15 (calling this outcome a “semantic mismatch between a modifier and a verb”). He similarly argues that the “last-antecedent canon”—which provides that a modifying phrase “should ordinarily be read as modifying only the [verb] that it immediately follows”—counsels in favor of construing the adverbial phrase as modifying only the adjacent verb “to produce” and not the other verb “to store.” Id. at 20-21.

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First-of-its-Kind Decision Rejects Liability for Calls Made Before Supreme Court Cured TCPA’s Unconstitutionality by Invalidating Debt-Collection Exception

Charter Communications may have just helped literally thousands of TCPA defendants snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

As our regular readers know, the Supreme Court recently held in Barr v. AAPC that a recent addition to the TCPA—specifically, an exemption for calls to collect federal debts—was a content-based regulation of speech that violated the First Amendment. It then severed that exception from the rest of the statute, and in doing so dashed the hopes of defendants that had advocated for invalidating all of the statute’s restrictions on automated telephone equipment.

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Supreme Court To Hear Facebook ATDS Argument on December 8th

On September 16, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it will conduct a telephonic oral argument for the Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid matter on December 8, 2020. As regular readers of our blog know, the Supreme Court granted Facebook, Inc.’s petition for certiorari in July and agreed to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision to reverse the dismissal of TCPA claims related to Facebook’s automated security text messages. The case promises to resolve the growing circuit split regarding the definition of an ATDS. We will provide continuing coverage of the Facebook case as it moves towards oral argument.

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Businesses, Trade Associations, and Public Policy Groups Flood Supreme Court with Amicus Briefs Supporting Narrow Reading of ATDS Definition

Late last week, numerous trade associations and public policy institutions filed amicus briefs supporting the narrow interpretation of the ATDS definition for which Facebook and the United States had advocated in briefs filed the week before. The case, Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, arises from an automated security-alert text message to an individual who had never consented to receive such messages. See Facebook Brief at 15. The amicus briefs seek to help the Supreme Court resolve the growing circuit split over what constitutes an ATDS.

The following amici (and others joining with them) filed briefs in support of Facebook: Lyft, Quicken Loans, Home Depot, Salesforce.com, Aetna, Midland Credit Management, Credit Union National Association, Portfolio Recovery Associates, the Retail Litigation Center, the Life Insurance Direct Marketing Association, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Professional Association for Customer Engagement, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The briefs (and previous filings in the case) can be found here.

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Facebook and U.S. Government File Supreme Court Briefs Supporting Narrow Interpretation of ATDS Definition

Last Friday, Facebook and the United States government filed briefs in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, the Supreme Court case that promises to resolve the growing circuit split over the interpretation of the definition of an ATDS. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in July, agreeing to review a Ninth Circuit decision that had reversed the dismissal of claims targeting Facebook’s login text alerts.

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