NEW TCPA BILL ANNOUNCED (AGAIN): Democrats Look to Expand TCPA’s ATDS Definition and Other Wild Choices–Brought to You By the NCLC!

Remember when Jones Day entered into a TCPA class action settlement that may send millions to the NCLC and I went nuts?

Here’s why.

A new Congressional bill to modify and expand the TCPA was just introduced in both the House and the Senate–and it was brought to you by the NCLC and all the ABSURD TCPA “defense” lawyers that try to pad their own pockets by giving money to the NCLC. Absolutely terrible.

But let’s get to the bill.

Entitled the “Protecting American Consumers from Robocalls Act” it will, of course, do nothing of the sort. All it does is expand the TCPA– the number one cash cow for the plaintiff’s bar– and make it easier for Plaintiff’s lawyers to sue small businesses and make more of their millions of dollars.

The NCLC, of course, is essentially the lobbying arm of the plaintiff’s bar– pretending to represent “low income” consumers but really representing high income lawyers that charge $20k for coaching lessons.

I digress.

The new bill would do two things:

1. It would expand the TCPA’s DNC rules to all phones– not just residential phones–so it would definitely cover cell phones (probably already does) and also business lines; and
2. It would expand the ATDS definition to apply to any system that dials from a list of numbers.

So rather than target the bad guy overseas scammers this bill basically expands the TCPA to cover systems used by good guys and bad guys– anyone making calls at scale works off of a list. This includes any bank or insurer trying to reach its customers for a variety of important purposes.

And, as anyone knows, massive risk is created by he TCPA’s uncapped damages provision– which leads to very rich Plaintiff’s lawyers.

I guess I shouldn’t complain– I’m the highest cost attorney in the nation right now because of all the TCPA chaos. But I am also ACTIVELY tying to STOP the abuse of small businesses the statute enables, instead of expanding it.

In a joint statement by U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), and U.S. Representative Kevin Mullin (D-CA-15) the sponsors of the bill said various nonsense including:

Specifically, the Protecting American Consumers from Robocalls Act:

• Amends TCPA to cover the equipment that scammers and telemarketers use by updating the definition of an Automated Telephone Dialing System to include systems which dial phone numbers from a stored list successively without human intervention;
• Allows small businesses to add their numbers to the Do-Not-Call Registry;
• Provides landline and cellular consumers, including small businesses, who have telephone numbers on the Do-Not-Call Registry, a private right of action after receiving one telephone call by or on behalf of the same entity in violation of the TCPA; and
• Ensures that a minimum of $500 can be levied for each violation of the Do-Not-Call Registry.

I’m not sure I follow their last point. The text of the bill–available here— does not seem to expand the DNC private right of action or modify the existing “up to” $500.00 penalty. But maybe I am missing it.

Anyway just one more thing to pay very close attention to.

We will be discussing at Law Conference of Champions IV, of course. Can’t miss it.

See you all there!