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The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) was signed into law almost 30 years ago when around 3% of the population owned cellular telephones and no one had heard of – let alone sent – a text message. Since that time, the legislature has substantively amended the TCPA only once to create a government debt exception. Despite the TCPA’s antiquated language and minimal amendments, it is the basis for thousands of lawsuits each year, with one study reporting that TCPA actions have increased by 740% in the last decade alone. The aggressive evolution of the TCPA to cover everything from automated text messaging systems to reassigned cellular telephone numbers to automatic opt-out provisions is largely attributable to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and, up until last week, TCPA defendants have been practically defenseless against the FCC’s far reach. But with the release of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appe
Monday, December 14, 2020
In 2016, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) found that the term “person” in Section 227(b)(1) of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) did not include the Federal government or agents acting on its behalf. At that time, the agency “clarified that a government contractor that places calls on behalf of the federal government may invoke the federal government’s immunity from the TCPA ‘when the contractor has been validly authorized to act as the government’s agent and is acting within the scope of its contractual relationship with the government, and the government has delegated to the contractor its prerogative to make autodialed or prerecorded- or artificial-voice calls to communicate with its citizens.’” Thus, under such circumstances federal contractors were exempt from the prior express consent requirements of Section 227(b)(1). State and local governments and their contractors were not included. Two petitions for
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Contractors working for federal, state and local governments need to get consent before making robocalls to consumers, the Federal Communications Commission said in a decision released Monday.
The order reverses the FCC’s earlier interpretation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, in which the agency in 2016 said federal contractors were excluded from the requirement for robocallers to obtain consumers’ prior express consent.
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For the second time this year, the U.S. Supreme Court is wading into the jurisprudential morass presented by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 with a case that could determine whether the TCPA will continue to be a lucrative and ever-expanding boondoggle for the plaintiffs’ bar.
On December 8, 2020, the justices heard oral argument in
Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid. The question before the Court is whether the TCPA’s definition of an “automatic telephone dialing system,” or ATDS, encompasses any device that can “store“ and “automatically dial” telephone numbers, even if the device does not “us[e] a random or sequential number generator.”
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Pot Marketing Biz Settles TCPA Suit After Winning Stay
Law360 (December 14, 2020, 9:41 PM EST) A cannabis marketing firm on Monday settled a proposed Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action after convincing a California federal court to stay the case while the U.S. Supreme Court weighs the definition of an automatic telephone dialing system under the law.
U.S. District Judge Donna M. Ryu granted Baker Technologies Inc. a stay last month after discovery indicated that the high court s decision in Facebook v. Duguid could determine whether Baker could be held liable for texts sent to dispensary customers on its now-defunct platform. Counsel for the parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday, and court.