Discovery

In Bill v. NCO Financial Systems, Inc., 2015 WL 5715402, at *2 (M.D.Fla., 2015), Judge Sneed denied a TCPA Plaintiff discovery of a site inspection of defendant's facilities. Plaintiff contends that a site inspection of Defendant's call center to examine the equipment used by Defendant in making calls to consumers is necessary for Plaintiff to meet her burden of establishing that… Read More

In Walker v. Credit Protection Ass'n, LP, 2015 WL 5522000, at *3-4 (M.D.Fla.,2015), Judge Sneed refused a TCPA Plaintiff's efforts to obtain a site inspection of the Defendant's call center and telephone system. Specifically, the Notice of Site Inspection requested "[t]hat Defendant permit Plaintiff to enter Defendant's Call Center and to inspect and to photograph, examine Defendant's telephone system and… Read More

In Ossola v. American Express Company, 2015 WL 5158712 (N.D. Ill. 2015), Judge Cole found that a TCPA plaintiff, whose liability theory against a Defendant proceeded solely based on vicarious liability, was not entitled to "call data" from that Defendant because it was irrelevant since since that Defendant did not place any calls.  Instead, the discovery appeared to be improperly tailored… Read More

In Thrasher v. CMRE Financial Services, Inc., 2015 WL 1138469 (S.D.Cal. 2015), Magistrate Stormes ordered a TCPA class-action defendant to produce outbound call lists, information on use of an ATDS, and ESI related to the putative classmembers’ consent.   The Magistrate ordered production of the outbound call lists. The court finds that the outbound call list is reasonably calculated to identify the… Read More

In Charvat v. Travel Services, 2015 WL 3917046, at *4-5 (N.D.Ill., 2015), Judge Wood affirmed the Magistrate Judge's sua sponte imposition of relevancy objections to deny discovery toward a serial TCPA Plaintiff. RCL contends that Charvat's tax returns are relevant to show that he derives substantial income from TCPA litigation and that his motivation for filing this action is financial gain rather… Read More

In Gold Group Enterprises, Inc. v. Bull, 2015 WL 3794719  (D.N.J.,2015), Judge Hammer granted in part and denied in part a Motion to Quash a TCPA subpoena issued to a third party service provider.  Petitioner Gold Mobile was not a party to the litigation. According to Gold Mobile's Executive Vice President, Gold Mobile provided various technological platforms and services that allowed companies to… Read More

In Balschmiter v. TD Auto Finance LLC, 2015 WL 2451853E.D. Wis. 2015), Judge Stadtmueller denied Plaintiff’s request to use a classmember list provided under a protective order to give pre-trial notice to putative classmembers after the Court (and 7th Circuit) already had denied class certification. The Court will not expend its resources, limited as they are, elaborating on the defendant’s… Read More

In Taylor v. Universal Auto Grp. I, Inc.,  2015 WL 2406071, at *4-5 (S.D. Ohio 2015), Judge Black affirmed a Magistrate's order compelling disclosure, pre-certification, of TCPA class members' names and addresses. OneCommand's primary argument is that the requested information is not relevant because the underlying action is in the pre-certification stage and that Plaintiff could only use this information to… Read More

In Hartley–Culp v. Credit Management Co., 2014 WL 4630852 (M.D.Pa. 2014), Judge Blewitt rejected a TCPA defendant's request for a stay/bifurcation of discovery. Defendant CMC seeks the Court to bifurcate discovery into two phases with the first phase limited to the issue of whether Plaintiff expressly consented to receiving calls on her cell phone. Defendant CMC maintains that if it proves… Read More

In Olney v. Job.com, 2014 WL 4629062 (E.D.Cal. 2014), the Plaintiff filed a TCPA class action based on calls he received after signing up for Defendant's resume service.  The Plaintiff and Defendant entered into a Discovery Stipulation allowing the parties to designate certain information as "Confidential".  The Defendant produced, and marked confidential, three recordings of telephone conversations with the Plaintiff.  As a… Read More

In Molnar v. NCO Financial Systems, Inc., 2014 WL 3371414 (S.D.Cal. 2014), Magistrate Judge Burkhardt allowed subpoenas to go forward issued by a TCPA defendant to the class Plaintiff's creditors and telephone carriers. The parties' dispute concerns defendant's requests for eight categories of documents from plaintiffs' creditors.FN1 The documents sought are to support defendant NCO's defense that it called plaintiffs to collect… Read More

In Cabrera v. Government Employees Ins. Co., 2014 WL 2999206 (S.D.Fla. 2014), Magistrate Judge Seltzer tailored a discovery order in a TCPA class action to the revised class definition proposed during the discovery Motion to Compel proceedings. Judge Seltzer made numerous rulings granting and denying discovery, some of which are highlighted below. Request Nos. 5,FN9 33, and 34 seek production… Read More

In Rowell v. NCO Financial Systems, Inc., 2014 WL 2154422 (D.Kan. 2014), Judge O’Hara held that the TCPA’s imposition of strict liability did no immunize a TCPA plaintiff from discovery, and ordered the Plaintiff to respond to broad-reaching discovery propounded by the Defendant.  The TCPA plaintiff was ordered to respond to interrogatories seeking all communications between the Plaintiff and the… Read More

In Meyer v. Receivables Performance Management, LLC, 2014 WL 1744284 (W.D.Wash. 2014), Judge Jones denied to stay a TCPA action based on the primary jurisdiction argument, denied Plaintiff’s motion for discovery as to dialer-lists, and denied Plaintiff’s request to delay filing a Motion for Class Certification. The District Court declined to stay the Action based on the Primary Jurisdiction argument.… Read More

In Gusman v. Comcast Corp. 2014 WL 1340192 (S.D.Cal. 2014), Magistrate Judge Bartik issued orders on discovery rulings in a TCPA class action. The facts were as follows. Plaintiff commenced this putative class action on May 2, 2013 by filing a complaint alleging that Comcast violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), 47 U.S.C. § 227 et seq. (ECF No.… Read More

In De La Torre v. Legal Recovery Law Office, 2014 WL 1279738 (S.D.Cal. 2014), Magistrate Judge Bartick ordered defendant to produce phone bills, but only for the time relevant in the Complaint and redacted to exclude calls made to parties other than the Plaintiff. Here, the Court concludes Defendant's phone bills are only relevant to the extent they contain evidence… Read More

In Webb v. Healthcare Revenue Recovery Group LLC, 2014 WL 325132 (N.D.Cal. 2014), Judge Seeborg ordered a TCPA class action defendant to produce an outbound call list, evidence of “express consent”, and its hardware and software manuals for its dialer. HRRG contends that in light of its concession that it called at least 100 cellular telephone numbers utilizing an artificial… Read More

In In re Monitronics Intern., Inc., Telephone Consumer Protection Act Litigation, 2014 WL 316476 (N.D.W.Va. 2014), Judge Kaull ordered discovery of other claims against a TCPA defendant in a TCPA telemarketing claim: Mey alleges that Versatile Marketing Solutions (“VMS”) acting on behalf of Monitronics and UTC, telephoned her multiple times between November 16, 2009, and December 20, 2011, despite the… Read More

We reported previously on the pending GroupMe petition, as well as others, pending before the FCC regarding whether the TCPA's definition of autodialer requires a 'present' capacity to store numbers.  (http://www.calautofinance.com/?p=3853) A District Court in Alabama recently held that the TCPA so requires: In Hunt v. 21st Mortg. Corp., 2013 WL 5230061 (N.D.Ala. 2013), Judge Acker was deciding a discovery dispute between the… Read More

In Knutson v. Schwan's Home Service, Inc., 2013 WL 3746118 (S.D.Cal. 2013), Judge Curiel vacated and remanded for further consideration a Magistrate’ Judge’s order requiring a TCPA class-action plaintiff to produce an outbound dial list.   Schwan's operates a grocery delivery service. In addition to delivering groceries to their primary customers, Schwan's also made deliveries on behalf of NutriSystem, Inc. to… Read More