TCPA QUICK HITTER: Court Holds Plaintiff Must Actually Have Personally Registered their Number on the DNC–and That’s Awesome

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In the wake of Facebook, a huge number of DNC-based TCPA claims have been filed.

The argument usually goes like this: I received more than two calls on my residential phone lines from some company selling me, whatever. My number has been on the DNC list since 1908, or some such date. Pay me money.

For most courts those allegations would be just fine, but in an interesting ruling out last month a Court in Iowa said it wasn’t quite so simple.

The mere fact that a number is on the DNC is not enough to give the Plaintiff a claim. Instead the Plaintiff him or herself must have actually registered the number on the DNC:

 The plain language of Section 64.1200(c) indicates that Section 227(c)(5)’s private action exists only for a residential telephone subscriber who has registered his or her telephone number on the national do-not-call registry.

So case dismissed.

This is a remarkable ruling–nice win guys–and very clever. Definitely something I (and everyone out there) should keep in mind when defending these cases.

And, of course, if you’re a consumer who just obtained a new phone number you might want to re-register yourself on the national DNC.

Case is here: Rombough

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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.

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