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FCC proposes $300 million fine against auto warranty scam robocaller
On December 21, the FCC announced a nearly $300 million fine against an auto warranty scam robocall campaign for TCPA and Truth in Caller ID Act violations, “which is the largest robocall operation the FCC has ever investigated.” According to the announcement, the two individuals in charge of the operation ran a complex robocall sales lead generation scheme, which was designed to sell vehicle service contracts that were deceptively marketed as car warranties. This “scheme made more than 5 billion robocalls to more than half a billion phone numbers during a three-month span in 2021, using pre-recorded voice calls to press consumers to speak to a ‘warranty specialist’ about extending or reinstating their car’s warranty.” As previously covered by InfoBytes, in July, the FCC took initial action by ordering “phone companies to stop carrying traffic regarding a known robocall scam marketing auto warranties.” The FCC noted that the operation is also the target of an ongoing investigation by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau and a lawsuit by the Ohio attorney general. The Ohio AG filed a complaint against multiple companies for participating in an alleged unwanted car warranty call operation (covered by InfoBytes here). The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, alleged that the 22 named defendants “participated in an unlawful robocall operation that bombarded American consumers with billions of robocalls.” In addition to the fine, among other things, the individuals who allegedly ran the operations are prohibited from making telemarketing calls pursuant to FCC actions.
FCC affirms three-call limit but permits oral consent
On December 21, the FCC issued an order on reconsideration and declaratory ruling under the TCPA, affirming a three-call limit and opt-out requirements for exempted residential calls. According to the FCC, the ruling is in response to requests from industry trade groups related to a 2020 order implementing portions of the Pallone-Thune Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED Act). The ruling upheld the three-call-limit for exempt calls made using automated telephone dialing systems to residential lines but revised the 2020 order’s requirement for “prior express written consent” to allow callers to obtain consent orally or in writing if they wish to make more calls than allowed. The FCC also granted a request to confirm that “prior express consent” for calls made by utility companies to wireless phones applies equally to residential landlines. The FCC noted that “limiting the number of calls that can be made to a particular residential line to three artificial or prerecorded voice calls within any consecutive thirty-day period strikes the appropriate balance between these callers reaching consumers with valuable information and reducing the number of unexpected and unwanted calls consumers currently receive.”
District Court says sellers may be vicariously liable for third-party TCPA violations
On December 5, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington denied an online retail pharmacy’s (defendant) motion for summary judgment in a TCPA suit. According to the order, the defendant engaged with a third party to call potential customers and transfer leads who were interested in the defendant’s services to its inbound call center. The order further noted that the third party contracted with another company to generate leads. Like the third party, the company did not make any calls but contracted with one or more vendors to place calls. The plaintiff received two calls from a prerecorded message that introduced itself as a person with the company. After asking the plaintiff if anyone in the household used prescription medications, among other things, he was transferred to an employee of the defendant who identified the defendant company by name and tried to sell the plaintiff their services. The plaintiff sued the defendant, arguing that it was “vicariously liable” for calls he received from a telemarketer that transferred the calls to the defendant’s sales representative. The defendant argued it was not directly liable under the TCPA because it did not directly place the calls to the plaintiff. The defendant also said it was not vicariously liable for calls placed by vendors because those vendors did not have express or implied actual authority to place calls for the defendant.
According to the district court, courts may hold sellers such as the defendant vicariously liable for TCPA violations of third-party callers “where the plaintiff establishes an agency relationship, as defined by federal common law, between the defendant and the third-party caller.” The court further wrote that labeling the contracted company “an independent contractor in the agreement with [the defendant] does not foreclose a finding that an agency relationship existed.” The district court also noted that there was a “genuine issue” of material fact as to whether the defendant had an agency relationship with the contracted company’s vendor.
FCC orders companies to block student loan scam calls
On December 8, the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau ordered voice service providers to cease carrying robocalls related to known student loan scams and specifically designated a service believed to account for more than 40 percent of student loan robocalls in October. The FCC’s order provides written notice to all voice service providers regarding suspected illegal robocalls that have been made in violation of the TCPA, the Truth In Caller ID Act of 2009, or the TRACED Act. Specifically, the order “directs all U.S.-based voice service providers to take immediate steps to mitigate suspected illegal student loan-related robocall traffic.” The order further noted that if a provider fails to “take all necessary steps” to avoid carrying suspected illegal robocall traffic, the provider may be “deemed to have knowingly and willfully engaged in transmitting unlawful robocalls.” According to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, the Commission is “cutting these scammers off so they can't use efforts to provide student loan debt relief as cover for fraud.”
FCC says consent is required for ringless voicemails
On November 21, the FCC issued a declaratory ruling that entities using ringless voicemail products must first obtain a consumer's consent prior to using the product to leave voicemails. According to the FCC, it receives “dozens of consumer complaints annually related to ringless voicemail.” The unanimous ruling establishes that ringless voicemails are “calls” that require consumers’ prior express consent, and further clarifies that a ringless voicemail is a form of a robocall, and therefore subject to the TCPA robocall prohibition, which prohibits making any non-emergency call with an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice to a wireless telephone number without the prior express consent of the called party.
The FCC’s declaratory ruling denied a 2017 petition filed by a company that distributes technology that permits voicemail messages to be delivered directly to consumers’ voicemail services. The petitioner argued that ringless messages, and the process by which the ringless voicemail is deposited on a carrier’s platform, is neither a call made to a mobile telephone number nor a call for which a consumer is charged and, therefore, is a service that is not regulated. The FCC rejected the petitioner’s argument that ringless voicemail is not a TCPA call because it does not pass through a consumer’s phone line and that the TCPA protects only calls made directly to a wireless handset, and does not result in a charge to the consumer for the delivery of the voicemail message. The ruling noted that “consumers cannot block these messages and consumers experience an intrusion on their time and their privacy by being forced to spend time reviewing unwanted messages in order to delete them.” The ruling also noted that a “consumer’s phone may signal that there is a voicemail message and may ring once before the message is delivered, which is another means of intrusion. Consumers must also contend with their voicemail box filling with unwanted messages, which may prevent other callers from leaving important wanted messages.” According to a statement by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, the rule makes it “crystal clear" that ringless voicemails are subject to the TCPA and that the Commission's rules "prohibit[] callers from sending this kind of junk without consumers first giving their permission to be contacted this way.”
9th Circuit says number generator does not violate TCPA
On November 16, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a district court’s dismissal of a proposed TCPA class action, holding that in order for technology to meet the definition of an “automatic telephone dialing system” (autodialer), the system must be able to “generate and dial random or sequential telephone numbers under the TCPA’s plain text.” Plaintiff claimed he began receiving marketing texts from the defendant after he provided his phone number to an insurance company on a website. Plaintiff sued alleging violations of the TCPA and asserting that the defendant used a “sequential number generator” to select the order in which to call customers who had provided their phone numbers. This type of number generator qualifies as an autodialer under the TCPA, the plaintiff contended, referring to a footnote in the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Facebook v. Duguid (covered by a Buckley Special Alert), which narrowed the definition of an autodialer under the TCPA and said “an autodialer might use a random number generator to determine the order in which to pick phone numbers from a preproduced list.” Defendant countered, however, that its system is not an autodialer, and “that the TCPA defines an autodialer as one that must generate telephone numbers to dial, not just any number to decide which pre-selected phone numbers to call.”
The 9th Circuit was unpersuaded by the plaintiff’s argument, calling it an “acontextual reading of a snippet divorced from the context of the footnote and the entire opinion.” The appellate court pointed out that nothing in Facebook suggests that the Supreme Court “intended to define an autodialer to include the generation of any random or sequential number.” The 9th Circuit further explained that “[u]sing a random or sequential number generator to select from a pool of customer-provided phone numbers would not cause the harms contemplated by Congress.”
District Court stays CFPB payday action following 5th Circuit decision
On October 31, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas stayed an enforcement action filed by the CFPB against a defendant Texas-based payday lender until after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issues its mandate in CFSA v. CFPB. As previously covered by a Buckley Special Alert, a three-judge panel unanimously held in CFSA that the CFPB’s funding structure created by Congress violated the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution. The parties filed a joint motion saying there was “good cause” to pause further proceedings in the litigation, explaining that the “agreed stay pending issuance of the mandate in CFSA will promote efficient resolution of the case, as the final decision in CFSA will control the resolution of key issues presented in [defendant’s] pending motion to dismiss.” One of the arguments raised in the defendant’s motion to dismiss centers around the assertion that the Bureau’s complaint should be dismissed because the agency’s funding structure violates the Constitution’s separation of powers.
In July, the Bureau sued the defendant for allegedly engaging in illegal debt-collection practices and allegedly generating $240 million in reborrowing fees from borrowers who were eligible for free repayment plans, in violation of the CFPA (covered by InfoBytes here). According to the Bureau, the defendant allegedly “engaged in unfair, deceptive, and abusive acts or practices by concealing the option of a free repayment plan to consumers who indicated that they could not repay their short term, high-cost loans originated by the defendant.” The defendant also allegedly attempted to collect payments by unfairly making unauthorized electronic withdrawals from over 3,000 consumers’ bank accounts.
9th Circuit says district court must reassess statutory damages in TCPA class action
On October 20, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered a district court to reassess the constitutionality of a statutory damages award in a TCPA class action. Class members alleged the defendant (a multi-level marketing company) made more than 1.8 million unsolicited automated telemarketing calls featuring artificial or prerecorded voices without receiving prior express consent. The district court certified a class of consumers who received such a call made by or on behalf of the defendant, and agreed with the jury’s verdict that the defendant was responsible for the prerecorded calls at the statutorily mandated damages of $500 per call, resulting in total damages of more than $925 million. Two months later, the FCC granted the defendant a retroactive waiver of the heightened written consent and disclosure requirements, and the defendant filed post-trial motions with the district court seeking to “decertify the class, grant judgment as a matter of law, or grant a new trial on the ground that the FCC’s waiver necessarily meant [defendant] had consent for the calls made.” In the alternative, the defendant challenged the damages award as being “unconstitutionally excessive” under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
On appeal, the 9th Circuit affirmed most of the district court’s ruling, including upholding its decision to certify the class. Among other things, the appellate court determined that the district court correctly held that the defendant waived its express consent defense based on the retroactive FCC waiver because “no intervening change in law excused this waiver of an affirmative defense.” The appellate court found that the defendant “made no effort to assert the defense, develop a record on consent, or seek a stay pending the FCC’s decision,” even though it knew the FCC was likely to grant its petition for a waiver. While the 9th Circuit did not take issue with the $500 congressionally-mandated per call damages figure, and did not disagree with the total number of calls, it stressed that the “due process test applies to aggregated statutory damages awards even where the prescribed per-violation award is constitutionally sound.” Recognizing that Congress “set a floor of statutory damages at $500 for each violation of the TCPA but no ceiling for cumulative damages, in a class action or otherwise,” the appellate court explained that such damages “are subject to constitutional limitation in extreme situations,” and “in the mass communications class action context, vast cumulative damages can be easily incurred, because modern technology permits hundreds of thousands of automated calls and triggers minimum statutory damages with the push of a button.” Accordingly, the 9th Circuit ordered the district court to reassess the damages in light of these concerns.
9th Circuit says telemarketing texts sent to mixed-use cells phones fall under TCPA
On October 12, a split U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of a TCPA complaint, disagreeing with the argument that the statute does not cover unwanted text messages sent to businesses. Plaintiffs (who are home improvement contractors) alleged that the defendants used an autodialer to send text messages to sell client leads to plaintiffs' cell phones, including numbers registered on the national do-not-call (DNC) registry. The plaintiffs contented they never provided their numbers to the defendants, nor did they consent to receiving text messages. The defendants countered that the plaintiffs lacked Article III and statutory standing because the TCPA only protects individuals from unwanted calls. The district court agreed, ruling that the plaintiffs lacked statutory standing and dismissed the complaint with prejudice.
On appeal, the majority disagreed, stating that the plaintiffs did not expressly consent to receiving texts messages from the defendants and that their alleged injuries are particularized. In determining that the plaintiffs had statutory standing under sections 227(b) and (c) of the TCPA, the majority rejected the defendants’ argument that the TCPA only protects individuals from unwanted calls. While the defendants claimed that by operating as home improvement contractors the plaintiffs fall outside of the TCPA’s reach, the majority determined that all of the plaintiffs had standing to sue under § 227(b), “[b]ecause the statutory text includes not only ‘person[s]’ but also ‘entit[ies].’” With respect to the § 227(c) claims, which only apply to “residential” telephone subscribers, the appellate court reviewed whether a cell phone that is used for both business and personal reasons can qualify as a “residential” phone. Relying on the FCC’s view that “a subscriber’s use of a residential phone (including a presumptively residential cell phone) in connection with a homebased business does not necessarily take an otherwise residential subscriber outside the protection of § 227(c),” and “in the absence of FCC guidance on this precise point,” the majority concluded that a mixed-use phone is “presumptively ‘residential’ within the meaning of § 227(c).”
Writing in a partial dissent, one judge warned that the majority’s opinion “usurps the role of the FCC and creates its own regulatory framework for determining when a cell phone is actually a ‘residential telephone,’ instead of deferring to the FCC’s narrower and more careful test.” The judge added that rather than “deferring to the 2003 TCPA Order which extended the protections of the national DNC registry to wireless telephones only to the extent they were similar to residential telephones, a reasonable interpretation of the TCPA, the majority has leaped over the FCC’s limitations to provide its own, much laxer, regulatory framework and procedures that broadly allow anybody who owns a cell phone to sue telemarketers under the TCPA.”
District Court grants preliminary approval of class action in robocall suit
On September 28, the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah granted preliminary approval of a TCPA class action settlement with a digital finance company. According to the plaintiff’s unopposed motion for preliminary approval, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant sent unwanted phone calls to approximately 64,845 unique cellular telephone numbers. The plaintiff’s motion noted that the district court granted, in part, the plaintiff’s motion for class certification and appointment of class counsel, and certified that the class consists of: “[a]ll persons throughout the U.S. (1) to whom [defendant] placed, or caused to be placed, a call, (2) directed to a number assigned to a cellular telephone service, but not assigned to a current or former [defendant] accountholder, (3) in connection with which [defendant] used an artificial or prerecorded voice, (4) from September 1, 2019 through September 21, 2021.” The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the defendant’s petition for permission to appeal the court’s order certifying the class. After that, the district court approved Plaintiff’s Rule 23(c)(2) class notice plan. After more than two years of “vigorously contested litigation, and as a result of extensive arm’s-length negotiations” the parties agreed to resolve this matter on behalf of a settlement class. The order further noted that the parties’ agreement “calls for the creation of a non-reversionary, all-cash common fund in the amount of $5 million, from which participating settlement class members will receive substantial payments.”