In Ashley v. General Elec. Capital Corp., 2013 WL 6133562 (M.D.Fla. 2013), Judge Steele allowed a TCPA case to go forward on a wrongfully called party theory.
In early June 2012, plaintiff received a telephone call to her cellular phone from defendant. (Id., ¶ 14.) Defendant left a prerecorded voice mail for a person by the name of “Rosa,” seeking to collect a debt. (Id., ¶¶ 10, 14, 18.) Plaintiff returned defendant’s call the same day, informed defendant that she did not owe them any money, and requested to be taken off their calling list. (Id., ¶ 14.) Despite this request, between June 2012 and September 2012, plaintiff received approximately sixty more prerecorded calls on her cellular telephone from defendant. (Id., ¶ 19.) During this time, plaintiff returned defendant’s calls on approximately ten to fifteen different occasions to advise defendant of their mistake. (Id., ¶ 15.)
Defendant argued that the TCPA did not apply to debt collection calls. Judge Steele said that it did.
Defendant citing to Meadows v. Franklin Collection Serv., Inc ., 414 F. App’x 230, 235 (11th Cir.2011), asserts that the TCPA does not apply to a debt collection call. The exemptions cited in Meadows only apply to calls made to residential telephone lines, and not cellular telephones. Id.; see also 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200. Therefore, defendant’s motion to dismiss Count I will also be denied.