TCPA

In DeCapua v. Metro. Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., No. 18-590 WES, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47695 (D.R.I. Mar. 18, 2020), Judge Smith granted a TCPA defendant’s motion to dismiss. The Court accepts the R&R's reasoning. See Glasser, 948 F.3d at 1312 ("Far from automatically dialing phone numbers, this system requires a human's involvement to do everything except press the… Read More

In Hagood v. Portfolio Recovery Assocs., LLC, No. 3:18-CV-1510-NJR, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47507 (S.D. Ill. Mar. 19, 2020), Judge Rosenstengel followed the Gadelhak decision and granted summary judgment to a TCPA defendant, finding that no ATDS was used under the TCPA. Hagood argues that this definition of an ATDS should be construed to cover any device that automatically dials… Read More

In Northrup v. Innovative Health Ins., No. 8:17-cv-1890-T-36JSS, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31851, at *12-21 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 25, 2020), Judge Honeywell granted summary judgment to a TCPA defendant. The Eleventh Circuit's holding that a device qualifies as an ATDS only if it uses a random or sequential number generator resolved a large part of the consolidated appeals. One of… Read More

In Gadelhak v. AT&T, here, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit disagreed with the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Marks, finding that an ATDS requires that a system store or produce numbers using a random or sequential number generator. We’ll save the intense grammatical parsing for the body of the opinion—here, we’ll just give the punchline. We hold that “using a random… Read More

In Ewing v. Pollard, No. 19-CV-855-CAB-BGS, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22659 (S.D. Cal. Feb. 10, 2020), Judge Bencivengo dismissed a TCPA case due to calls being manually dialed. This section of the TCPA prohibits "any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using any automatic telephone dialing… Read More

In Beal v. Outfield Brew House, No. 2:18-cv-4028-MDH, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22487 (W.D. Mo. Feb. 10, 2020), Judge Harpol granted summary judgment to a TCPA defendant, rejecting the 9th Cir.’s decision in Marks.   Plaintiff urges the Court to follow the Ninth Circuit's opinion, which found the statutory definition of an ATDS ambiguous and interpreted an ATDS to include devices… Read More

In Hoagland v. Axos Bank, No. 19-cv-00750-BAS-JLB, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20543, at *9 (S.D. Cal. Feb. 6, 2020), Judge Bashant declined to stay a TCPA case while the FCC considers what an ATDS is. Defendant argues the case should be stayed while the FCC considers promulgating regulations further defining an ATDS and determining the proper approach to calls made… Read More

In Warciak v. Subway Rests., Inc., No. 19-1577, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 3487 (7th Cir. Feb. 5, 2020), the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said that Subway was not responsible under the TCPA for contractually participating in T-Mobile’s text message campaign advertising “T-Mobile Tuesdays”. After reviewing the record, we agree with the district court that Warciak's complaint failed… Read More

In Glasser v. Hilton Grand Vacations Company, LLC, (No. 18-14499), the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit got it wrong in Marks. After they each received over a dozen unsolicited phone calls, some about repaying a debt, others about buying vacation properties, Melanie Glasser and Tabitha Evans sued the… Read More

In Sandoe v. Bos. Sci. Corp., Civil Action No. 18-11826-NMG, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2800, at *11-12 (D. Mass. Jan. 8, 2020), Judge Gorton granted summary judgment on a TCPA "re-assigned" number case, permitting a "reasonable reliance" defense. The First Circuit Court of Appeals has not addressed this issue and the district courts in this Circuit and other circuits that… Read More