In In re Collecto, Inc., 2016 WL 552459, at *2-4 (D.Mass., 2016), Judge Stearns summarily rejected a challenge to the FCC's authority to define an ATDS. Collecto's summary judgment argument begins with the contention that the court should give no weight whatsoever to the FCC's determination that a predictive dialer is an ATDS for TCPA purposes. According to Collecto, the… Read More
In Norman v. AllianceOne Receivables Management, Inc., 2015 WL 9286778, at *1 (7th Cir. 2015) (unpublished), the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment granted on the basis that calls were placed manually and, therefore, were exempt from the TCPA. The district court granted summary judgment after AllianceOne produced evidence showing that its calls to Norman were dialed… Read More
In Sherman v. Yahoo!, Inc., 2015 WL 8757028, at *4-5 (S.D.Cal. 2015), Judge Curiel found a question of fact on whether Yahoo!'s IM system required human intervention. To support its position, Yahoo relies on district court cases, which have held that where a message must be “triggered” by human intervention, the system is not an ATDS. (ECF No. 134-1 at 8-12… Read More
In Estrella v. LTD Financial Services, 2015 WL 6742062, at *1-3 (M.D.Fla., 2015), Judge Whittemore granted summary judgment to a TCPA defendant who manually dialed calls by a "point-and-click" method. To succeed on his TCPA claim, Plaintiff must establish that Defendant placed calls to his cellular phone using an ATDS or artificial or prerecorded voice. The TCPA prohibits the use of… Read More
In Gossett v. CMRE Financial Services, 2015 WL 6736883, at *1 (S.D.Cal.,2015), Magistrate Judge Stormes followed her previous decision on a motion to compel in Thrasher v. CMRE Financial Services, since the same defendant was involved, and the same counsel were involved as in Thrasher. The parties presented this court with a discovery dispute regarding CMRE's responses to Gossett's first set of… Read More
In Freyja v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., here, Judge Fischer granted summary judgment to a defendant in a TCPA case because human intervention involved in the call disqualified the call as being from an ATDS. The undisputed facts demonstrate that Plaintiff was not called from an ATDS. An ATDS is a piece of “equipment which has the capacity to (a) store or… Read More
In Derby v. AOL, Inc., 2015 WL 5316403, at *4-6 (N.D.Cal., 2015), Judge Whyte dismissed a TCPA claim challenging AOL's AIM and the Plaintiff's receipt of three unsolicited text messages that plaintiff received through defendant's AOL Instant Messenger (“AIM”) service, and a confirmation text from AOL to plaintiff following plaintiff's request to block future messages from AIM. Judge White found that a… Read More
In McKenna v. WhisperText, 2015 WL 5264750, at *1 (N.D.Cal., 2015), Judge Grewal dismissed Plaintiff's TCPA class action because no TCPA was used. The facts were as follows: Defendants WhisperText, LLC, and WhisperText, Inc. operate an anonymous sharing service called Whisper. The idea is to allow users to share their ideas, hopes and fears without attribution. Like many services accessed primarily… Read More
In Luna v. SHAC, LLC dba Sapphire Gentlemen's Club, here, Judge Lloyd granted summary judgment to a TCPA defendant who was accused of violating the TCPA for sending text messages to customers. Shac operates the Sapphire Gentlemen’s Club in Las Vegas, Nevada. Shac engaged CallFire, a third-party mobile marketing company, to provide a web-based platform (here, EXTexting.com) for sending promotional text messages to… Read More
In Derby v. AOL, Inc., No. 15-CV-00452-RMW, 2015 WL 3466213, at *3-4 (N.D. Cal. June 1, 2015) amended at Derby v. AOL, Inc., No. 15-CV-00452-RMW, 2015 WL 3477658 (N.D. Cal. June 1, 2015), Judge Whyte dismissed Plaintiff's TCPA case on a Motion to Dismiss. This case arise arises out of three unsolicited text messages that plaintiff received through defendant's AOL Instant Messenger (“AIM”) service,… Read More
In Glauser v. GroupMe, Inc., 2015 WL 475111 (N.D.Cal. 2015), Judge Hamilton found that GroupMe's business model did not trigger or violate the TCPA because the software that sent the text was triggered by GroupMe's customers and, therefore, there was "human intervention". This putative class action arises under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), which prohibits the making of any call (including… Read More
In McKenna v. WhisperText, 2015 WL 428728 (N.D.Cal. 2015), Judge Grewal found that a TCPA plaintiff pleaded himself out of a TCPA claim because there was no allegation of an absence of human intervention. A little over a year ago, Plaintiff Tony McKenna got a text he did not expect from “16502412157.” The text was an invitation to download the… Read More
In Morse v. Allied Interstate, LLC, --- F.Supp.3d ----, 2014 WL 7004036 (M.D.Pa. 2014), Judge Nealon granted Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment on a TCPA case, finding that the defendant had used an ATDS. Here, the parties agree there was no human intervention at the time the calls were placed. The calls were made without a human contemporaneously dialing the number… Read More
Yes, you read it right. In Gragg v. Orange Cab Co., Inc., --- F.Supp.2d ----, 2014 WL 494862 (W.D.Wash. 2014), Judge Lasnik held that a TCPA did not use an ATDS within the meaning of the TCPA. The facts were as follows: Defendant Orange Cab Company, Inc. (Orange Cab) utilizes TaxiMagic, a Ridecharge, Inc. product, as a means of remaining… Read More
