The majority of tcpa disputes are prosecuted through individual lawsuits. The TCPA processing plant industry is a real phenomenon, especially since TCPA disputes have increased significantly in recent years. Once your business is affected by a TCPA lawsuit, you become an inseparable part of the fabric of the TCPA litigation. A New Jersey woman has received two major TCPA decisions against two different companies in two different federal district court. The first, in 2013, was a $571,000 decision against a financial company that called her husband`s phone after defaulting on a car loan (the decision was later overturned as part of a confidential settlement). The second, in 2015, was a $229,500 decision against a cable company. These two individual lawsuits show how the TCPA`s litigation departed from Senator Hollings` expectation that “the amount of damages in the law would be fair to both the consumer and the telemarketer.” The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (CLTPA) was signed in 1991, more than two decades ago, with the specific purpose of ending harassment and unwanted telephone calls to consumers. In recent years, the number of TCPA lawsuits alleging TCPA violations has increased surprisingly, with one study estimating that TCPA lawsuits increased by 63% in 2012 alone (WebRecon, 2012). So what is the cause of this explosive increase in litigation? The answer seems to be a confluence of factors: modern technology that allows companies to reach a large number of consumers in a short period of time, no limitation of damages combined with litigation, which is often not controlled by a reasonable application of legal language to modern technology, and the lack of an updated regulatory interpretation of decades-old legal language, that takes into account how consumers and businesses communicate today. The number of class actions filed under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) – which restricts marketing via sms and email, telephone requests, fax transmissions, automated dialing systems and recorded voice messages – has increased significantly in recent years. This is due to a variety of factors, including the explosive growth of commercial marketing on mobile devices; increased enforcement of the CPLA; rules that make filing TCPA cases relatively easy for individuals; the requirement that applicants only have to prove that they have received unsolicited communications and not that they have been harmed; and a U.S. Supreme Court decision authorizing the filing of TCPA class actions in federal and state courts. TCPA lawsuits allow consumers to pursue unwanted robocalls, spam text messages, and unwanted faxes to potentially collect between $500 and $1500 for each call or text without prior explicit consent.
In 2017, a North Carolina jury awarded $20.5 million to a class action lawsuit against Dish Network. The company was convicted of violating the TCPA for making more than 51,000 telemarketing calls to 18,000 victims with phone numbers in the National Do Not Call Registry. The best way to avoid these hidden costs is to have a TCPA compliance policy that makes you less vulnerable to lawsuits. Fighting a lawsuit requires an excessive amount of time and resources. Even if you win, you will never get back what you spent fighting the lawsuit. These wasted resources would have been better spent on your actual business. One of the techniques used by these common TCPA litigants is to anchor multiple lawsuits with an applicant by reviewing that plaintiff`s phone records to identify targets. Companies that have previously been the recipients of a TCPA lawsuit are easily identifiable targets for additional lawsuits.
Violations can lead to lawsuits that often lead to settlements. In recent years, TCPA colonies have become exponentially larger and more common for the reasons mentioned above. Pfeifer, Morgan & Stesiak has the resources and legal knowledge to build a strong case for consumers who are harmed by companies that put profit above all else. Our TCPA lawyers are ready to assess facts and issues and determine how a company received your information. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (CPTPA) regulates unwanted telephone calls and telemarketing activities, including automated telephone calls with pre-recorded voice messages (robocalls), text messages and unwanted faxes. Under the TCPA, recipients of inappropriate phone calls, text messages and faxes can sue the offender(s) and recover up to $1,500 for each VIOLATION of the TCPA. .