There is a guy on death row in Alabama who didn’t actually kill anyone. He was involved with a robbery and somebody else did and he got the death penalty under a doctrine called “felony murder.” The twist, however, is that the guy who actually did commit the murder didn’t get the death penalty.
That’s justice for you.
By comparison then the story of Katz v. Allied First Bank, 2026 WL 636723 (N.D. Ill. March 6, 2026) isn’t so bad.
In Katz Allied is stuck in a TCPA class action for calls it didn’t make. The parties that are actually responsible for the allegedly illegal calls– Consumer Nsight and Iconic Results– settled with Plaintiff and walked away leaving Allied to hold the bag.
Tough stuff.
So in Katz Allied asked the court to dismiss it from the lawsuit since both of the actual “bad guys” had been dismissed– all Allied did (according to it) was buy leads it thought were from individuals consenting to receive calls.
Too bad. The Court refused to let Allied out–probably because its lawyers made one really bad argument.
Pause.
You hear me mention mistakes made by defense counsel quite often– and I have to tell you it DOES make a difference.
When you’re dealing with a federal judge in a tweener– and TCPA cases can often go either way– the court is looking to see which side it trusts more to make a decision. Judges do not like not be mislead an will punish a party making an argument that does not hold water. So when its clerks find an erroneous or unfounded argument the Court is VERY likely to go against that side on EVERYTHING.
That is likely what happened to Allied.
It argued the TCPA did not apply to the calls at issue because an ATDS was not used. But the claims at issue were DNC claims. And as every TCPAWorld follower knows, a DNC claim does not require the use of an ATDS.
The court rejected Allied’s argument to the contrary and that likely set it up for failure on the rest of its arguments.
For instance the court rejected the consent evidence submitted by Allied–even though the form contained plaintiff’s number AND a fake name Jason Wiem that Plaintiff has used in other cases.
The Court also found Allied could be vicariously liable for calls made by Iconic even though it never contracted with Iconic and may or may not have even known the company was involved in making calls.
Allied also claimed Plaintiff had already been fully paid for damages he could recover as part of his settlement with Iconic and Consumer Nsight, but the Wolf–Paronich who represents Katz–was apparently too smart for that. However much Katz got from CN and Iconic LESS than full statutory damages were recovered by Katz– so he could keep suing Allied.
Bottom line–Allied is stuck in a TCPA class action for calls it didn’t make while the guys who made the calls are out of the case.
Justice indeed.
Avoid crushing liability and risk folks– hire great TCPA counsel to defend you. And be sure to obtain a copy of the FREE 2026 Troutman Amin, LLP TCPA Annual Review, presented by Contact Center Compliance.
Chat soon!