WOW!!: Amended Florida Bill Would Apply RETROACTIVELY to Destroy Pending Mini TCPA Suits!

3 Comments

Wow. This is just huge news.

I broke the news last week that the Florida legislature is considering a massive fix to the Mini-TCPA mess. Specifically the legislature is looking at narrowing the definition of Florida’s “autodialer” law to apply to systems that automatically select numbers AND dial them and not just systems that automatically select numbers OR dial them.

Well today a new amendment to that amendment is out and one with incredible potential impact–it would make the revised law apply retroactively!!!

Here’s the language:

The amendments to s. 501.59, Florida Statutes 89 are intended to be remedial in nature, apply retroactively to July 1, 2021, and to any proceeding commenced on or after July 1, 2021.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

So if this passes, not only would future calls be exempted from the currently-broad law but any calls made now would also be safe. And any calls that are the current subject of the avalanche of Mini-TCPA suits plaguing the state–at least those based on the broad autodialer definition–would be completely neutralized.

Obviously this opens up a number of avenues for defendants facing mini-TCPA suits–moving to stay seems like a pretty good idea–and this amendment poses a huge detriment to Plaintiff’s lawyers who were looking to profit off the new Florida law.

Full amendment here: Amendment

We’ll keep a very close eye on these developments and report everything we can even as we help press for these positive changes to the law.

Now I really need to get some work done.

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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.

3 Comments

  1. It still doesn’t make it clear enough to me. CRM’s are used by auto dealerships. They are capable of dialing and selecting numbers based on select criteria chosen by the employee, but they are not fully automated. Texts are more of a grey area as they can be sent to a large group of inquirers without each text needing to be manually clicked. It also may take some time for an employee to respond.

    So is this legislation saying that the system merely has to be capable of this, or that the rules would only apply to those calls/texts in which are both selected and dialed automatically, without human intervention? If that’s the case, then it wouldn’t apply to most dealers.

    Reply

    1. Those CRMs need the employee to click to dial each number. The CRM can’t automatically select and dial a bunch of numbers, like a predictive dialer would. Such CRMs wouldn’t fit the amended definition. It’s unlikely that they would be found to fit the current definition either.

      Reply
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