Thirty-eight members of the Senate and House of Representatives wrote Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler, asking the FCC to limit application of Section 301, to "accomplish several important consumer protection objectives:"
- Issue an immediate pronouncement stating that no calls can be made pursuant to Section 301, until the FCC finalizes regulations required by the provision
- Create Regulations governing calls made pursuant to Section 301 that:
Limit permissible calls to those collecting defaulted debt
Limit calls to reassigned numbers
Limit the number ...
On November 4, 2015, after President Obama signed the Bipartisan Budget Agreement of 2015 into law, Senator Ed Markey introduced legislation to repeal Section 301 of the agreement that exempted from the TCPA's requirement of prior express consent calls made relating to debt owed to, or backed by the federal government.
On November 2, 2015, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in Spokeo v. Robins, which raises the question of what constitutes requisite injury to support a claim for violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. In Spokeo, Plaintiff filed a class action Complaint against Defendant, accusing Defendant of violating the FCRA by publishing false information about him. The trial court dismissed Plaintiff's claim, concluding Plaintiff had not experienced the requisite harm to sustain a claim. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that violation ...
Roberts v. Paypal, Inc., No. 13-16304 (9th Cir. Oct. 20, 2015) Pending before the Court was the trial court's Order granting summary judgment in Defendant's favor concluding that Plaintiff provided "prior express consent" to receive text messages from Defendant by knowingly providing his phone number. The Court of Appeals rejected Plaintiff's argument that his consent was limited, stating "[u]nder the FCC's interpretation, Roberts expressly consented to text messages from PayPal when he provided PayPal his cell phone number. Even if Roberts believed that PayPal would only ...
Dominquez v. Yahoo, Inc., No. 14-1751 (3rd Cir. Oct. 23, 2015) Plaintiff bought a cell phone that came with a reassigned number. The previous owner of the number had subscribed to a Yahoo notification service, which sent text messages every time an email was sent to the previous owner's linked Yahoo account. Because the previous owner never canceled the service, Plaintiff received text messages every time the previous owner received an email totaling 27,809 text messages over a 17 month period. The trial court originally granted summary judgment in Yahoo's favor, concluding that the ...