SERIOUS STUFF: Court Reminds TCPA Lawyers They Could Be Disbarred or Jailed for Submitting False Evidence– And Everyone Should Take Note

Its getting a little chippy out there in TCPAWorld lately.

I’ve been noticing an increasing effort by TCPA litigants to seek sanctions and call each other liars.

At issue, ultimately, are the veracity of leads– webform submissions purporting to demonstrate consent. Sometimes they’re valid. Sometimes they’re fraud. And sometimes they’re valid but a consumer thinks they’re fraud because they don’t remember filling out a form.

This can lead to some very aggressive posturing in litigation for lawyers who don’t understand how it all works–and this can befuddle and anger federal judges.

For example in Morris v. Carshield. 2026 WL 860433 (E.D. Mo. March 30, 2026) a TCPA defendant foolishly sought to have a court consider a consent record at the pleadings stage.

Now this was foolish–April foolish?–for a couple of reasons.

Most basically you can’t use extrinsic evidence in support of a motion to dismiss– so there was a 100% chance this motion was going to fail. And it did. Total waste of their client’s money by the defense team here–obviously NOT Troutman Amin, LLP.

Also foolish because the Plaintiff was going to deny visiting the website so even if the form could be considered by the court–and it couldn’t be– there would be a question of fact preventing the court from ruling in the defendant’s favor anyway.

Also foolish because the evidence relied upon was weak:

“CarShield’s own representative stating that Plaintiff requested information does not prove that Plaintiff actually did. Also, not every request for information implies consent to a telemarketing call. And CarShield possessing some information about Plaintiff’s car does not prove that Plaintiff provided prior consent for a phone call. CarShield could have obtained the information from a third party, or Plaintiff could have provided it by some method that did not involve consenting to telemarketing calls.”

Eesh.

But perhaps the most foolish thing of all is the defense counsel’s efforts to threaten sanctions against the Plaintiff when the IP addresses apparently don’t match. Here’s the court’s assessment:

In the briefing of this motion, each party implies that the other has engaged in serious misconduct. Specifically, with its motion,
Defendant submitted a document purporting to be the record of a website form filled out by Plaintiff. Doc. [9-6]. In response,
Plaintiff submitted a sworn affidavit stating, “I never visited CarShield’s website or any affiliated website and never submitted
any of my personal information or telephone number to CarShield or any related entity.” Doc. [15-1] ¶ 9. The affidavit also
states that the IP address associated with the form indicates that “the claimed consent originated internally from CarShield.” Id.
¶ 17. The affidavit was sworn under “penalty of perjury pursuant to 28 U.S.C § 1746.” Id. ¶ 2.

The Court goes on to remind everyone submitted false evidence to the court is a very serious problem. Indeed, in a footnote the court suggests somebody could end up disbarred or in jail if this keeps up:

See, e.g., In re Caranchini, 956 S.W.2d 910, 919 (Mo. 1997), as modified on denial of reh’g, (Dec. 23, 1997) (“[W]hen
an attorney, with an intent to deceive the court, submits a false document, makes a false statement, or withholds material
information, disbarment is the appropriate sanction.”); 18 U.S.C. § 1623(a) (knowing submission to a United States court
of a “false material declaration” under penalty of perjury is punishable by a fine or imprisonment of up to five years).

Yeah, this is serious stuff folks.

Those bringing TCPA cases should take note– knowingly bring a bad case and you could end up disbarred or in jail.

But it works both ways– knowingly relying on a bad or fraudulent lead could lead to the same outcome.

So keep it classy out there TCPAWorld.

And now classier place to be on May 4-6, 2026 than Law Conference of Champions!

Check out these keynotes!

Chat soon.