TCPA Blog

California Court Enters Summary Judgment Against Plaintiff Who Failed To Prove Vicarious Liability

A court in the Northern District of California recently granted a defense motion for summary judgment, finding that the defendants were not vicariously liable for a subcontractor’s supposed TCPA violations because the record showed that they had neither given the subcontractor authority to violate the TCPA nor ratified its acts.

In Schick v. Caliber Home Loans, Inc., defendant Caliber hired defendant NextLevel to generate leads for its home loan refinancing business. No. 20-CV-00617-VC, 2021 WL 4166906, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 14, 2021). Their contract mandated that NextLevel “perform or provide” its services “in full compliance with … all applicable federal, state, and local laws, regulations and ordinances.” Id. The contract further required that NextLevel “not allow any subcontractor … to perform or provide” services “without … prior written consent.” Id. Without Caliber’s consent, in violation of the subcontractor provision, NextLevel hired subcontractor Driving Force to provide leads. Id. After allegedly receiving two calls on a number on the national “Do Not Call” Registry, Plaintiff filed suit and sought to hold the defendants vicariously liable. Id.

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Barr Ruling Cures Claims Arising During Life of Government-Debt Exception, Holds Texas District Court

Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas concluded that plaintiffs can bring claims for violations of 47 U.S.C. § 227(b) that arose while the government-debt exception (“GDE”) to that provision was still on the books. The decision comes amid growing contention among courts in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, 140 S. Ct. 2335 (2020), which struck down the GDE as an unconstitutional content-based restriction on speech.

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New Petition Renewing Request for FCC Clarification of TCPA Status of “Ringless Voicemail” for “Get Out the Vote” Campaigns

The FCC recently announced a public comment period for a new Petition for Declaratory Ruling that seeks to have the FCC “clarify that delivery of a voice message directly to a voicemail box through ringless voicemail (RVM) technology does not constitute a ‘call’” subject to TCPA prohibitions. The Petition was filed by the U.S. Senate campaign for David Perdue – Perdue for Senate, Inc. (Perdue) stemming from litigation in Georgia related to primary election delivery of RVMs to voters. Interested parties have until October 4, 2021, to submit comments and until October 19, 2021, to submit reply comments.

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Sixth Circuit rejects Creasy line of cases, holding TCPA claims arising between November 2015 and July 2020 are viable

The Sixth Circuit recently became the first federal court of appeals to weigh in on whether plaintiffs can bring TCPA claims for conduct occurring between November 2015 and July 2020—the respective dates on which the unconstitutional government debt exception was passed and the Supreme Court’s decision in Barr v. AAPC declared it unconstitutional and severed it from the statute. Some district courts, such as the District of Louisiana in Creasy v. Charter Communications, Inc., 2020 WL 5761117 (E.D. La. Sept. 28, 2020), have concluded plaintiffs cannot—reasoning that the TCPA was void while an unconstitutional provision was part of it. As covered in our prior posts, district courts have come down on both sides of the issue—leading to significant confusion.

Enter the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Lindenbaum v. Realgy, LLC, No. 20-4252, 2021 WL 4097320 (6th Cir. Sept. 9, 2021), which considered the Chief Judge of the Northern District of Ohio’s decision that dismissed a putative class action arising from prerecorded calls.

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FCC Seeks to Assess a $5.1 Million TCPA Fine from Political Operatives Behind Alleged Anti-Voting Phone Calls

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed to slap a Virginia political firm and two of its principals with a $5,134,500 fine for placing over one thousand prerecorded phone calls to cell phones across the country without prior consent from recipients, in violation of the TCPA and Commission rules. The action is the FCC’s first big enforcement matter under the recently enacted Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (“TRACED”) Act and demonstrates the Commission’s willingness to use that statute to assess hefty penalties against noncompliant entities.

Under the 2019 TRACED Act, the Commission may issue a “Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture” to an entity that violates the TCPA’s prohibitions on prerecorded voice messages and autodialing systems, without first having to issue a warning to the entity. See Pub. L. No. 116-105, 133 Stat. 3274, Sec. 3(a). The defendant then has an opportunity to challenge the allegations before the Commission issues a final decision on liability and fines. See FCC, Enforcement Primer (“FCC-Initiated Investigations”). Prior to the TRACED Act, FCC rules required the Commission to issue a citation to an alleged violator of § 227(b) before it could seek to impose a forfeiture penalty upon them.

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Private Cause of Action Exists for Violations of Do-Not-Call Rule, North Carolina Federal Judge Says

Last week, Judge James C. Dever III of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina handed down a decision of first impression for that court: the FCC’s do-not-call rule, 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(d), creates a private right of action for telephone subscribers who receive calls in violation of that rule’s “minimum standards.” The decision widens the growing split among federal courts as to which provision of the TCPA gives life to the DNC rule.

On its motion to dismiss, the defendant argued that the plaintiff could not maintain an action for alleged violations of § 64.1200(d) because the FCC promulgated that rule under 47 U.S.C. § 227(d), which does not create a private right of action for violations of implementing regulations. Fischman v. MediaStratX, LLC, No. 2:20-CV-83-D, 2021 WL 3559639, at *4 (E.D.N.C. Aug. 10, 2021). In opposition, the plaintiff argued that the rule was actually passed pursuant to 47 U.S.C. § 227(c), which does create a private right of action for such violations. Id.

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Ninth Circuit Vacates Certification of Nationwide Classes, Holding that Defendant Did Not Waive Personal Jurisdiction Challenge by Not Raising It Precertification

On August 10, 2021, a divided Ninth Circuit panel vacated a trial court’s certification of two nationwide classes, finding that the defendant had not waived its personal jurisdiction objection to class certification by not raising the issue at the pleading stage. See Moser v. Benefytt, Inc., No. 19-56224, 2021 WL 3504041 (9th Cir. Aug. 10, 2021).

This case arose as a putative nationwide class action filed by Kenneth Moser in federal court in California against Benefytt Technologies, Inc., formerly known as Health Insurance Innovations, Inc. (HII), alleging that HII was responsible for unwanted sales calls that violated the TCPA. Moser was a resident of California, whereas HII was incorporated in Delaware and had a principal place of business in Florida.

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Telemarketers’ Alleged Conduct Establishes Personal Jurisdiction over Principal with No Direct Forum Ties, Seventh Circuit Holds

The Seventh Circuit has reversed a decision from last year by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissing a TCPA claim for lack of personal jurisdiction over an alleged principal of the caller. That decision, which we covered here, concluded that the plaintiff had not established an agency relationship between defendant Health Insurance Innovations, Inc. (“HII”) and the unnamed “lead generators” that had made the allegedly unsolicited calls. Bilek v. Fed. Ins. Co., No. 19-8389, 2020 WL 3960445, at *5 (N.D. Ill. July 13, 2020). As a result, the Northern District held that it lacked specific personal jurisdiction over HII, which had no connection to the forum state beyond its alleged relationship with the telemarketers that called the plaintiff in Illinois. Id.

On appeal, the plaintiff argued that he had plausibly alleged an agency relationship and that the district court should therefore have imputed the caller’s conduct to HII when assessing whether it could exercise specific personal jurisdiction over the latter. Bilek v. Fed. Ins. Co., No. 20-2504, 2021 WL 3503132, at *6 (7th Cir. Aug. 10, 2021).

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FCC TCPA Actions Mid-Year Review

After adopting orders reflecting the majority of implementation deadlines set by the TRACED Act and the Supreme Court’s highly anticipated TCPA decision interpreting the statutory definition of automatic telephone dialing system in the first half of 2021, all eyes are on what the FCC has planned. Midsummer seems like a good time for a year-to-date review to track where the FCC has been and where it is headed next in its TCPA oversight and enforcement roles.

STIR/SHAKEN Call Authentication Framework

Last week, the FCC adopted its January 2021 proposal and issued a Report and Order establishing what the FCC describes as “a fair and consistent process” that a voice service provider can use to challenge a decision by the STIR/SHAKEN framework Governance Authority to strip that provider of the “digital token” that authenticates calls on that provider’s Internet-Protocol (IP) networks.

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