The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas recently granted a defendant debt collection agency’s motion to compel arbitration in a TCPA case. See Bow v. Ad Astra Recovery Servs., Inc., No. 18-0510-G, 2018 WL 3455510 (N.D. Tex. July 18, 2018) (available here). In doing so, the court enforced an arbitration agreement that the debt collection agency had never signed, on the ground that the agreement expressly referenced the agency as an “affiliate” of the two lenders that had signed the agreement. The court’s decision provides helpful guidance for enforcing arbitration agreements, particularly in the context of a loan agreement that may lead to debt collection efforts—and potential TCPA exposure. Continue reading “Texas Federal Court Compels Arbitration of TCPA Claims, Grants Motion of Nonsignatory to Agreement”
Category - "General"
Senate Judiciary Holds Hearing on Abusive Lawsuits
As we previously reported, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary recently held a hearing entitled “The Impact of Lawsuit Abuse on American Small Businesses and Job Creators.” Although the TCPA was not the sole focus of the hearing, concerns about abusive lawsuits are highly applicable in the TCPA context.
Continue reading “Senate Judiciary Holds Hearing on Abusive Lawsuits”
U.S. Senate Votes for More Pai
On Tuesday, October 3, 2017, the Senate confirmed Chairman Ajit Pai to a second term at the FCC, enabling him to potentially stay on as chairman until the end of 2021. Originally appointed by President Obama in 2012, Chairman Pai was a member of the Republican minority on the Commission until early 2017, when former Chairman Tom Wheeler resigned and President Trump elevated Pai to the chairmanship. While Pai’s term technically ended in 2016, FCC rules allowed him to keep serving until the end of 2017 while the Senate considered his re-nomination. Continue reading “U.S. Senate Votes for More Pai”
The TCPA and Its Implications for Credit Unions
TCPA Blog contributor Michael Stortz and TCPA Blog editor Michael Daly will discuss the TCPA at the Regulatory Compliance Seminar of the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU) on October 10, 2017. This discussion will provide an overview of the statute, including recent regulatory developments at the FCC and recent judicial interpretations of the statute’s applicability and requirements. It will also explore the potential risks that credit unions face and best practices for proactively managing them.
For more information about the seminar, please visit the NAFCU website.
TCPA Blog Nominated As A Best Legal Blog of 2016
For more than three years, our team has been providing you with breaking news and important information about litigation and regulation under the TCPA. We hope that you have enjoyed reading our blog as much as we have enjoyed writing it. If you have, we invite you to consider supporting our blog by voting for it in this year’s Best Legal Blog Contest. To do so, please click here and cast your vote. Thank you for your support!
Distinguished In-House Counsel to Join TCPA Blog Contributors for CLEs in San Francisco and Los Angeles
Please join Drinker Biddle’s TCPA Team and special in-house counsel guests for a CLE program titled “Braving the Minefield of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act: hot Topics in Litigation and Compliance” that will address recent developments and successful defense strategies related to the TCPA.
San Francisco
Tuesday, November 10
The Ritz-Carlton
600 Stockton Street
Los Angeles
Wednesday, November 11
Beverly Wilshire
500 Wilshire Boulevard
Special Guests
Alycia Horn, Assistant General Counsel, Comcast Cable
Melinda McAfee, Vice President & Associate General Counsel, Abercrombie & Fitch
Allison Marrazzo, Litigation, Patent and Technology Counsel, eBay Inc.
California Federal Court Upholds Pre-Certification Discovery of Defendant’s “Outbound Dial List” in TCPA Class Action
A California federal district court recently ordered a debt collector to produce an “outbound dial list” that identified all telephone numbers it had called using an ATDS over a one-year period. See Webb v. Healthcare Revenue Recovery Grp. LLC, No. C. 13-00737 RS, 2014 WL 325132 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 29, 2014). The ruling highlights the potential conflict between the discovery objectives of putative class counsel on the one hand, and the privacy rights of putative class members on the other.
Ten Comical Parallel Acronyms, or: Ten TCPAs That Will Not Be Covered by the TCPA Blog
Our digital searches for new decisions under “TCPA or T.C.P.A.” have yielded some interesting (and, truth be told, lots of uninteresting) decisions about what we all know to be the TCPA. As it happens, though, they have also yielded decisions about a whole host of other “TCPAs,” for example the Trademark Cyberpiracy Prevention Act, the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act, the Texas Citizens’ Participation Act, and the New Jersey Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act.
None of those TCPAs will be covered here, interesting though they may be. Nor will the following ten associations, alliances, advocates, or archeologists that also go by the name of “TCPA.” Unless, that is, they sue or are sued under the TCPA—which, at the rate things are going, is only a matter of time.
10. The Town and Country Planning Association
9. The Trusted Computing Platform Alliance n/k/a the Trusted Computing Group
8. The Texas Competitive Power Advocates
7. The Foundation for Theoretical and Computational Physics and Astrophysics
6. The Texas Crime Prevention Association
5. The Thai Crop Protection Association
4. The Turpanjian Center for Policy Analysis
3. The TI Calculator Programming Alliance
2. The Tennessee Council of Professional Archaeology
1. The Tantawangalo Catchment Protection Association