PAYDAY: $1.2MM in Fees Awarded to Plaintiff’s Lawyers in New TCPA Class Action Against Aerocare Holdings

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Another week, another high dollar TCPA settlement netting over a million in fees for a Plaintiff’s law firm.

Jeremy M. Glapion and Bradford Rothwell Sohn just netted over a million dollars ( $1,281,400 in attorney’s fees and $14,341.83 in costs to be precise) in a new TCPA settlement.

The settlement involved alleged robotext messages sent by defendant related to CPAP supplies AFTER a stop text was sent.  The class definition was:

Since November 23, 2018, all persons to whose telephone number the AdaptHealth Parties initiated, or had initiated on their behalf, more than one text message in a 12 month period for the purpose of inviting the recipient to order CPAP supplies, after the recipient had replied “stop” or its equivalent to one of the AdaptHealth Parties’ text messages.

The class was estimated to contain 32,738 members, who were scheduled to receive $160.00 each if they made a claim.

That puts the total settlement value here at $5.2MM in theory, although Defendant only had to pay class members who actually made claims– so the actual out of pocket here will likely be under $2MM including attorneys fees.

To be clear– the plaintiff’s attorneys likely collected more than the entire class did on this settlement (although I haven’t checked the claims rate to confirm.)

This is why they keep funneling money to the NCLC folks.

Notice that these stop text failure cases have been driving a ton of litigation lately. They can be quite dangerous as this settlement confirms.

For more key tips and information about trends under the TCPA and other consumer privacy statutes be sure to attend the Marketing Law conference event of the year this July!!!

Chat soon.

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Published by Eric "Czar" 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. At first blush, Czar, I sort of agree with you as to to twist in my stomach when I read that the Plaintiffs’ attorney makes over a Million dollars from the case, and may even make more that the actual class plaintiffs — especially when you compare it to the paltry 2 or 3 digit amount that each class plaintiff may ultimately receive. But, then, the class attorneys took the case on “spec” — if they did not succeed, they would have been out of pocket 5 or 6 digits. In your instance, as a TCPA defense attorney, you open up your palm to your client and collect a 5 digit retainer even before you write down their name, and you bill for every second you spend thinking about the case in minimum quarter-hour increments. I have met more than one attorney that “somehow” managed to regularly log 40+ hours billable time during an 8 hour work day. And, it is those attorneys that wonder why the average American lacks confidence in our legal system.

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