Some welcome the New Year with new goals and new plans while others – the FCC, in particular, welcomes the New Year by wrapping up TCPA rulemakings and issuing other rulings. As expected, a number of TRACED Act items were included in orders issued in late December 2020. As we previewed, the FCC amended nine existing TCPA exemptions, imposing additional restrictions on pre-recorded/artificial voice calls placed to residential lines even for informational calling, and adopted new redress requirements on and safe harbor protections for carriers engaging in network-based call blocking. The FCC also denied two petitions for declaratory rulings, clarifying that “soundboard callers use a prerecorded voice to deliver a message” and that as a result, these calls made using soundboards are subject to TCPA restrictions. In light of these changes, we encourage business callers to carefully assess how they affect any existing calling protocols and compliance practices.
California District Court Criticizes Creasy, Concluding Barr Decision does not Deprive it of Jurisdiction
A district court from the Central District of California cast its lot against the growing argument that federal courts lack jurisdiction over TCPA claims based on conduct that occurred when the government debt exception was part of the statute. See Shen v. Tricolor California Auto Group, LLC, No. 20-7419, 2020 WL 7705888, at *1 (C.D. Cal. Dec. 17, 2020).
As our regular readers know, the government debt exception—a relatively new addition to the TCPA—was recently severed from the statute by the Supreme Court’s decision in Barr v. AAPC. Since, several federal district courts have questioned whether they may enforce the statute as to claims based on conduct that allegedly occurred while the exception was part of the statute, i.e. from November 2, 2015 through July 6, 2020. Most notably, the Eastern District of Louisiana concluded in Creasy v. Charter Communications that the Barr decision held that the TCPA was unconstitutional in its entirety during the pendency of the exception, that courts lack authority to enforce a constitutional statute, and that courts therefore cannot hear claims based on conduct during that period.
Professional Plaintiff Who Manufactured Claims Can Sue But Can’t Represent Class
A recent denial of a professional plaintiff’s motion for class certification shows that, irrespective of whether such plaintiffs have standing to sue on their own behalf, courts are increasingly skeptical that contrived claims are amenable to class treatment. See Hirsch v. USHealth Advisors, LLC, No. 4:18-CV-00245-P, 2020 WL 7186380, at *1 (N.D. Tex. Dec. 7, 2020).
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Is Florida Queasy About Creasy?
On the same day last week, two different judges in the Middle District of Florida issued divergent decisions regarding the effect of the Supreme Court’s holding in Barr v. AAPC, 140 S. Ct. 2335, 2347 (2020). One followed the Eastern District of Louisiana’s groundbreaking decision in Creasy v. Charter Communications and the Northern District of Ohio’s subsequent decision Lindenbaum v. Realgy. But the other is notable because it broke with those decisions, marking the first time a court has rejected them. Compare Hussain v. Sullivan Buick Cadillac-GMC Truck, No. 20-0038, 2020 WL 7346536 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 11, 2020) (following Creasy) with Abramson v. Fed. Ins. Co., No. 19-2523, 2020 WL 7318953 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 11, 2020) (rejecting Creasy).
FCC Reconsiders Government Contractors’ Classification as TCPA Non-“Persons”
The FCC in 2016 determined that the federal government was not a “person” subject to the TCPA, and that by extension, federal contractors working within the scope of their delegated authority were also not bound by TCPA restrictions. This Broadnet Declaratory Ruling was the subject of at least one prominent dissent. At the time, then-Commissioner Ajit Pai observed: “[I]t is odd to suggest that a contractor’s status as a ‘person’ could switch on or off depending on one’s behavior or relationship with the federal government.” The National Consumer Law Center and Professional Services Council both filed petitions for reconsideration and this issue was again joined on December 14, 2020, when the FCC issued a Reconsideration Order stating that government contractors – but not federal or state governments themselves – “must obtain prior express consent to call consumers” when making calls on behalf of the government.
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District of Nevada Applies Agency Principles to TCPA Suit Against Messaging Platform and Consumer-Info Company, Dismisses Claims
Last week, the District of Nevada contributed to a growing consensus among Ninth Circuit district courts that TCPA liability generally does not extend to companies that produce equipment used to place unlawful calls—such as messaging platforms and contact lists— because the entities that use such equipment usually do so on behalf of another company, and not the equipment provider.
District Court (Again) Holds Text Messages Insufficient to Confer Article III Standing
The Southern District of Florida recently dismissed a TCPA claim sua sponte for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, finding that the plaintiff had not alleged a concrete injury-in-fact. See Perez v. Golden Trust Insurance, Inc., 470 F. Supp. 3d 1327 (S.D. Fla. 2020).
Perez alleged that Golden Trust had violated the TCPA when, without his consent, it used an ATDS to send two telemarketing text messages to his cell phone. Golden Trust argued that the complaint should be dismissed because Perez did not properly allege the use of an ATDS.
Timing Is Everything in Eleventh Circuit’s Renewed Consent Case
The Eleventh Circuit recently affirmed the entry of summary judgment in favor of a student loan servicer and its affiliate, finding that their nearly 2,000 calls did not violate the TCPA because the plaintiff had renewed his consent by submitting an online demographic form. See Lucoff v. Navient Sols., LLC, No. 19-13482, 2020 WL 7090315 (11th Cir. Dec. 4, 2020).
The history of this case is somewhat winding. In 2010, the plaintiff was part of a class action against one of the defendants. Id. at *1. As part of the settlement terms, class members who did not submit revocation request forms were deemed to have provided prior express consent to receive calls regarding their student loans. Id. The plaintiff did not submit a revocation request. Id.
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What’s in a Name? Not a Certified Class
The Tenth Circuit kicked off the holiday season with a little TCPA humor. In Rivera v. Exeter Finance Corp., No. 20-1031, 2020 WL 6844032, at *1 (10th Cir. Nov. 23, 2020), the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals was confronted with a case about “[p]esky robocalls: we all get them, we all hate them, and yet we cannot seem to get rid of them, no matter how many times we unsubscribe, hang up, or share choice words with the machine on the other end of the line.” The plaintiff evidently “share[d] this sentiment” with Justices Tymkovich, Briscoe, and Murphy, but also figured that he was “not the only one suffering from [defendant]’s vexatious robocalls” and brought a putative class action. Id.
4th Circuit Declines to Consider Dish Network’s “Premature” Appeal of District Court’s $11 Million Final Disbursement Order
As readers of this blog may recall, the Middle District of North Carolina recently denied Dish Network’s request for reversion of $11 million in unclaimed funds from the jury-awarded damages in a TCPA class action trial. See Krakauer v. Dish Network, LLC, No. 14-0333 (M.D.N.C. Oct. 27, 2020). Noting that the TCPA is a deterrence statute, the District Court held that allowing unclaimed funds to revert to the defendant would undermine the function of the damage award, and it determined that such funds should either escheat to the government or be donated to an appropriate charity whose work is related to the objectives of the TCPA. But the District Court did not decide the ultimate recipient of the unclaimed funds, appointing a special master to identify and evaluate potential cy pres recipients and make recommendations to the court.