SORDID TALE: Repeat TCPA Litigator Callier Allegedly Hands His Phone to an Accident Victim to Hook Edward Law Group in Texas Registration Suit

Absolutely fascinating one for you today.

Brandon Callier– everybody’s favorite TCPA litigator knucklehead– has filed a new TCPA suit against Plaintiff’s personal injury suit Edwards Law Group in El Paso and it is a doozy.

I mean to start with Callier is suing a plaintiff’s firm– that’s always interesting to see.

But the more fascinating aspect is Callier apparently handed his phone to his partner in crime (the Bonnie to his Clyde) and had her take the call.

As he frames it: “Plaintiff gave the phone to a Silva, Barbara Silva (“Silva”) who had recently been in a car accident as part of an investigation into the origin of the phone call.”

This is very clever.

So let’s back up.

The allegation here is that Callier received a prerecorded call soliciting him to retain a law firm to assist with a personal injury recovery. Rather than feign interest in the services himself–which some courts look down upon as “setting up” the lawsuit–he handed the phone to Silva and she “set up” the lawsuit for him. Hahaha.

Interestingly, when Silva stayed on the phone the telemarketer informed Silva that the phone number was on the “blacklist” and asked for a phone number to call back to continue the solicitation. Silva gave the telemarketer a phone number ending in 6393 as a call back.

Pause again.

So Callier’s number was blacklisted–presumably by a litigator scrub– which means Edwards Law would not buy a lead coming from that number. But when Silva provided a number Edwards apparently did buy that lead and called Silva.

In the meantime the goofy lead generator allegedly KEPT CALLING CALLIER.

My goodness.

So the lead generator KNOWS they are calling a black listed number but keeps calling it anyway.

Meanwhile Silva speaks with Edwards law and has all the information she had provided to the lead generator and that allows Callier to trace all the lead gen calls back to Edwards.

Callier sues Edwards for making illegal calls AND for failing to register under Texas’ crazy aggressive telemarketing registration law.

You can read the whole complaint here: Callier Complaint

Couple of lessons here:

1. Lead generators be causing trouble (work with good members of R.E.A.C.H. to avoid this sort of thing);
2. Requiring lead generators to scrub out certain numbers AFTER calls to those numbers have already been attempted is NOT a successful strategy– lead buyers need to make sure their lead gen partners are performing litigator scrubs BEFORE calls are attempted;
3. The Texas registration rules remain very real and very scary for lead buyers– they may find themselves on the hook for failing to register in a jurisdiction they don’t even call directly;
4. Litigators will use every trick under the sun to set up a lawsuit– so be careful!; and
5. If you are buying or selling leads you NEED compliance advice– maybe from the incredible William Fife III!

Also a couple of these litigators– maybe even Callier?– might be taking the stage at LCOC. Does that sound fun or sort of lame?

Good idea or bad idea? Let me know.

Chat soon!