Telephone Consumer Protection Act Blog | Burr & Forman LLP

Southern District of New York Holds TCPA Claim Fails To Satisfy Minimum Pleadings Requirements When Simply Parroting Statute

Joshua H. Threadcraft — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 09:00:01 -0400

Lazar Shcherb v. Angi Homeservices, Inc., 19-cv-367 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 25, 2019)

Plaintiff filed suit against various corporate defendants alleging that they used an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) to call his cell phone in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) contending that, “[u]pon information and belief,” “when Defendants made these calls, [they] used equipment that had the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers . . . using a random or sequential number generator and/or a predictive dialer” with the capacity to dial such ...

Ninth Circuit Finds that the TCPA Debt Collection Exception Violates the First Amendment

Tue, 09 Jul 2019 09:00:02 -0400

Last month, in Duguid v. Facebook, Inc., 17-15320, 2019 WL 2454853 (9th Cir. June 13, 2019), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (“Ninth Circuit”) held that the debt collection exception to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii), violates the First Amendment because it is content-based and fails to pass strict scrutiny review. Duguid is not a Facebook user and did not consent to be contacted by Facebook. Duguid alleged that Facebook violated the TCPA in 2014 by sending text message notifications to his cell phone ...

District Court Denies Certification of “Novel” TCPA Reassigned Number Class Defined by List of Cell Phone Subscribers Identified by Plaintiff’s Counsel Because Class Still Could Not Be Ascertained Based on “Objective Criteria”

Ryan J. Hebson, Matthew T. Mitchell — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 09:00:03 -0400

Although courts across the country agree that “a plaintiff class should not be certified unless membership therein is ‘adequately defined and clearly ascertainable,’” the extent of what a plaintiff must provide to satisfy this “implicit requirement” to certification varies among circuit courts. See Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC v. Belcher, No. 18-90011, 2018 WL 3198552, at *3 (11th Cir. June 29, 2018) (citations omitted). For example, some circuit courts have construed the requirement to “mean[] a plaintiff must demonstrate an ‘administratively feasible’ ...

Southern District of New York Holds Consent Cannot Be Unilaterally Revoked

Joshua H. Threadcraft — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 09:00:04 -0500

Ford v. Bluestem Brands, Inc., No. 18 CV 2695 (VB), 2019 WL 1046367 (S.D.N.Y. March 4, 2019)

Defendant provided Plaintiff with a $300 line of credit Plaintiff used to purchase a laptop from Defendant. Plaintiff claimed he received a letter from Defendant canceling his order, never received the laptop and Defendant could not prove he did. When Defendant sought to collect payment for the laptop, Plaintiff allegedly told Defendant he never received it, disputed the payment and required all future communications be by mail. Plaintiff claimed that despite this notification, he received ...