ANOTHER ARBITRATION LOSS: Lead Buyers Just Can’t Catch a Break As Litigators Deny Visiting Websites

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Pretty common theme right now in TCPAWorld.

Lead buyer buys a lead and makes an outbound call. Lead buyer sued by a litigator who claims “wasn’t me.” Lead buyer tries to enforce the arbitration provision–to kill the class action component of the case–and the court refuses to enforce because the Plaintiff denied visiting the website to begin with.

That fact scenario played itself out anew in Gilliam v. Prince Health, 2025 WL 1126545 (M.D. Tenn April 16, 2025).

There Prince Health bought a lead from JLN CORP d/b/a P1 Solutions who bought it from Techforcemedia LLC d/b/a Top American Insurance pertaining to website topamericaninsurance.com. (None of these companies are R.E.A.C.H. members!) The website contained an arbitration provision in its terms of use.

A visual rendering was provided to the court of the web session by either Active Propsect or Jornaya and it showed Plaintiff’s name and information being entered on the form. On that basis Prince Health tried to compel arbitration arguing plaintiff had accepted the terms and conditions and agreed to arbitrate claims arising out of the lead form submission.

Plaintiff, however, testified at deposition that he had not visited the website and it was not him who had filled out the form.

Just that simply the court denied the motion to compel arbitration. Although the court determined Prince had met its initial burden the fact Plaintiff denied visiting the website under oath was enough for the court to deny the arbitration motion and set further proceedings.

The court’s order is unclear in terms of next steps but under the Federal Arbitration Act a jury or bench trial is needed to determine whether a contract was formed and whether the case may proceed to arbitration. Of course such a proceeding is high stakes– if the plaintiff didn’t fill out the form then not only will he defeat arbitration he will also defeat any claim of consent!

And if the court finds one person didn’t fill out the form perhaps the court will question the credibility of the lead source and certify a class down the line…

So yeah, high stakes poker.

We’ll keep an eye on this and see where it goes.

And I know where YOU should be going– to Washington DC at the end of this month to the DNC.com TCPA Summit to check out some great speakers and cherry blossoms!

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.

2 Comments

  1. Oh yeah, the so very popular topamericaninsurance.com website. It’s the first one I think of when it comes to my insurance needs. So memorable and the content is so interesting, I visit it almost daily, like everyone else in America.

    But I’m also so confused??!! I went to https://ahrefs.com/traffic-checker/ and typed in the address of my favorite website and it says 0 organic traffic. WHAT??!! 0 organic traffic means no one on the internet actually visits this site. How could this be??!! The internet must be glitching. Oh well, back to my favorite website topamericaninsurance.com!

    Reply

  2. Check out to American insurance.com, they list over 1000 marketing partners. What scumbags! Of course, they are not R.E.A.C.H. members.

    Reply

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