TCPA Blog

Dish Network Seeks New Trial After $20 Million TCPA Jury Verdict

Dish Network LLC (“Dish”) recently filed a motion for a new trial after a jury found Dish liable for more than 51,000 calls to 18,000 class members, resulting in an award of $20.5 million.

In Krakauer v. Dish Network LLC, No. 14-0333 (M.D.N.C.), the plaintiff alleged that he had received telemarketing sales calls from an authorized dealer of Dish despite registering his number on the National Do Not Call Registry. He further alleged that these calls continued even after his telephone number was placed on both Dish’s and its authorized dealer’s internal Do Not Call Lists. Before trial, the court certified two classes: the first consisting of persons who received telemarketing calls despite having their telephone numbers on the National Do No Call Registry, and the second consisting of persons who received telemarketing calls despite having their telephone numbers on the internal Do Not Call Lists of Dish or its authorized dealer. Continue reading “Dish Network Seeks New Trial After $20 Million TCPA Jury Verdict”

Eastern District of Michigan Dismisses Claim Because Fax Was Not An Advertisement

The Eastern District of Michigan recently dismissed a TCPA claim with prejudice after finding that the single fax at issue did not constitute an advertisement. See Matthew N. Fulton, D.D.S., P.C. v. Enclarity, Inc., No. 16-13777, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28439 (E.D. Mich. Mar. 1, 2017). In doing so, it reaffirmed the Sixth Circuit’s position that, in deciding whether a fax is an advertisement, courts should not look beyond the four corners of the document and should ask whether it “‘promote[s] goods or services to be bought or sold’” and “‘ha[s] profit as an aim.’” Id. at *4 (citation omitted). Continue reading “Eastern District of Michigan Dismisses Claim Because Fax Was Not An Advertisement”

Second Circuit Affirms Denial of Certification Because Putative Class is Unascertainable, but Holds Receipt of Phone Calls Confers Standing

Last week, the Second Circuit, in Leyse v. Lifetime Entertainment Servs., LLC, affirmed the denial of class certification in a putative TCPA prerecorded message class action for lack of an ascertainable class. (We previously blogged about this district court decision.) Lifetime, concerned that viewership of its hit show “Project Runway” would suffer due to a channel change, hired a third-party vendor, OnCall Interactive, to contact New York City residents with a prerecorded message from the show’s host informing potential viewers of the channel change. Leyse v. Lifetime Entertainment Servs., LLC, No. 13-cv-5794, 2015 WL 5837897, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 22, 2015). OnCall, in turn, purchased a list of phone numbers from an unknown third-party vendor; Lifetime never obtained that list. Id. at *2. Continue reading “Second Circuit Affirms Denial of Certification Because Putative Class is Unascertainable, but Holds Receipt of Phone Calls Confers Standing”

Central District of California Dismisses TCPA Claims Due to a Lack of Traceability

One of our recent articles discussed how federal courts have analyzed the “traceability” element of Article III in TCPA cases. Specifically, we noted that two federal courts had cited Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S.Ct. 1540 (2016) in dismissing claims because the alleged injuries were not “traceable to” (i.e., caused by) the purported violations. See Ewing v. SQM US Inc., No. 16-1609, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 143272 (S.D. Cal. Sept. 29, 2016); Romero v. Dep’t Stores Nat’l Bank, No. 15-0193, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 110889 (S.D. Cal. Aug. 5, 2016). In their view the “violation” was not the act of dialing a number, but rather the act of dialing a number with an ATDS. Because the plaintiffs’ alleged injuries would have been the same if the defendants had dialed their numbers manually, the courts found that the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing because their alleged injuries were not traceable to the use of an ATDS. Although the cases involved only one or two calls, the courts did not limit their traceability analyses to that context. Nevertheless it remained unclear whether this rigorous approach to traceability would be applied more broadly in other contexts. Continue reading “Central District of California Dismisses TCPA Claims Due to a Lack of Traceability”

Northern District of California Rejects First Amendment Challenge to the TCPA

A federal judge in the Northern District of California recently denied a motion to dismiss a putative class action accusing Facebook of violating the TCPA by sending text messages reminding users about their friends’ birthdays. In so doing, the court rejected Facebook’s First Amendment challenge and found that the TPCA survived strict scrutiny. Brickman v. Facebook, Inc., No. 16-0751, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11849 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 27, 2017). Continue reading “Northern District of California Rejects First Amendment Challenge to the TCPA”

Eastern District of Pennsylvania Reaffirms Entry of Summary Judgment in Favor of Yahoo!

On remand from the Third Circuit, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania recently reaffirmed its entry of summary judgment in favor of Yahoo!, holding once again that the company’s email-to-text alert system did not qualify as an automatic telephone dialing system (“ATDS”). Specifically, the court found that “present capacity” was the appropriate standard and declined to apply the “potential capacity” test that a narrow majority of the FCC announced in its July 2015 Declaratory Ruling & Order (“2015 Ruling”). See Dominguez v. Yahoo!, Inc., No. 13-1887, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11346, at *7 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 27, 2017); Rules & Regulations Implementing Tel. Consumer Protection Act of 1991, 30 FCC Rcd. 7961 (2015). Continue reading “Eastern District of Pennsylvania Reaffirms Entry of Summary Judgment in Favor of Yahoo!”

The Tide Is Turning: Ajit Pai Chosen To Head FCC

On July 10, 2015, a sharply divided FCC issued a Declaratory Ruling and Order (the “July 2015 Order”) that missed the mark. The July 2015 Order purported to expand the scope of the TCPA through its unsupported redefinition of an “automatic telephone dialing system,” create an untenable one call “safe harbor” for reassigned number liability, and permit parties to revoke consent through any “reasonable” means. The July 2015 Order is presently on appeal in the D.C. Circuit, and there is hope that the Court, which heard argument on October 19, 2016, will undo its pronouncements, which have had broad implications for businesses that place calls and send text messages to consumers for telemarketing or informational purposes. These companies have faced potentially crushing liability through a huge wave of TCPA actions (both proposed class actions and individual claims) as well as pre-suit demands, many of which have been initiated by opportunistic plaintiffs’ lawyers and serial plaintiffs. Continue reading “The Tide Is Turning: Ajit Pai Chosen To Head FCC”