Just A Reminder to Stay With Us: Decisions From Coast to Coast Continue to Stay TCPA Cases pending SCOTUS Review

1 Comment

As we’ve been covering, the briefing in the big Facebook ATDS SCOTUS appeal is almost complete and oral argument is just about 45 days away now.

In the meantime, decisions continue to roll in granting stays in TCPA litigation across the nation.

For instance, on Friday of last week the S.D.N.Y. stayed a TCPA ATDS case finding “a decision in the Facebook case may substantially resolve the present case, easing the burden of discovery on the defendant and saving judicial resources. The plaintiff will not be harmed by the stay because the defendant has attested that it is aware of its obligations and has instituted a litigation hold to preserve documents that may be relevant to the litigation. The stay is for a relatively brief period of time because the Supreme Court will likely decide the Facebook case at some point in the current Term. The balance of the relevant factors weighs decidedly in favor of a stay.”  Loftus v. Signpost, Inc., 19 cv 7984 (JGK), 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 193130 (S.D.N.Y. October 19, 2020).

Then on Monday of this week the W.D. Wash. stayed a TCPA case arising out of a webform submission on Progressive.com. The Plaintiff contends he continued to receive marketing texts messages even after declining to purchase insurance with Progressive. But the Court agreed to stay this robotext case pending the Supreme Court’s TCPA review: “If the system that eFinancial uses to send its text messages does not meet the definition of an ATDS—a definition that the Supreme Court is expected to clarify in Duguid II—then Mr. Borden’s individual and class claims against eFinancial are not covered by the TCPA.”

Squire Patton Boggs’ powerful TCPA defense team, of course, helped pioneer the tactic of moving to stay TCPA litigation pending the Facebook SCOTUS ATDS appeal—it earned the first such stay in the nation—and TCPAWorld.com continues to encourage TCPA defendants to seek stays rather than risk creating bad case law like recently occurred in the Sixth Circuit’s Allan case and in the Fourth Circuit’s footprint.

Categories:

Published by Eric J. Troutman

The Czar of TCPAWorld Eric Troutman is one of the country’s prominent class action defense lawyers and is nationally recognized in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) litigation and compliance. He has served as lead defense counsel in more than 70 national TCPA class actions and has litigated nearly a thousand individual TCPA cases in his role as national strategic litigation counsel for major banks and finance companies. He also helps industry participants build TCPA-compliant processes, policies, and systems. Eric has built a national litigation practice based upon deep experience, rigorous analysis and extraordinary responsiveness. Eric and his team feel equally at home litigating multibillion dollar telecommunications class actions in federal court as they do developing and executing national litigation strategies for institutions facing an onslaught of individual TCPA matters. They thrive in each of these roles – delivering consistently excellent results – while never losing sight of the client experience. While many firms now tout TCPA expertise, Eric has been there from the beginning. He built one of the country’s first TCPA-only defense teams and began serving as national TCPA counsel for his clients nearly a decade ago. This perspective allows him to swiftly develop the right litigation strategies for dealing with recurring problems, without wasting time on tactics that are bound to fail. Eric’s rich historical perspective and encyclopedic knowledge of the TCPA landscape also make him an invaluable resource to institutional compliance teams struggling to comply with the shifting regulatory landscape. No task is too small – or too big. Indeed, Eric and his team have helped build TCPA-compliant systems and processes for some of the largest and most complex corporate entities in the country. He commonly works with in-house compliance counsel to build and implement enterprise and business-line specific TCPA solutions, performs TCPA audits and drafts and reviews proposed TCPA policies and procedures. He and his team also have the technical expertise necessary to assist call centers seeking to develop TCPA-resistant call path architecture or to modify existing telephony and software integration to better insulate from potential TCPA exposure. Eric has built a reputation for thought leadership. An avid blogger and speaker, he has been at the forefront of the industry’s effort to push for clarity and a return to sanity for the TCPA for years. He was selected to advocate for the financial services industry on important TCPA issues before the Federal Communications Commission and co-authored the nation’s only comprehensive practice guide on TCPA defense. In his spare time, Eric leads defense teams representing banks and other financial services companies in consumer finance litigation matters. He has experience representing clients in UCC, TILA, RESPA FCRA, CCRA, CLRA, FDCPA, RFDCPA and FCCPA claims, as well as in fraud and bank operations issues.

1 Comment

  1. Pingback: TCPA NIGHTMARE: Court Grants $122k Summary Judgment Against Debt Collector for Using Noble Predictive Dialer to Contact Revoking Debtor– CEO Must Face Jury on Personal Liability – TCPAWorld

Leave a Reply