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The Telephone Consumer Protection Act and many state laws provide statutory damages per text message. Just how many characters are in a text message? This is a situation where some knowledge of how text messages work is helpful. Standard text messages are limited to 160 characters, and text messages with emojis is limited to 70….

I wrote a few days ago that I didn’t expect Looper Bright and now McLaughlin to change the TCPA landscape much. Courts have been doing what they want for a long time, so just as an Oregon court rejected the cell-phones-aren’t-residential-telephone-lines nonsense, a California court has followed the same path in Ferrell v. Colourpop Cosmetics, LLC,…

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act § 227(b) already regulated artificial and prerecorded voice robocalls but just to make it abundantly clear the FCC officially declared artificial intelligence generated speech as also falling under § 227(b) in a ruling dated 2/8/2024. ‘Today the Federal Communications Commission announced the unanimous adoption of a Declaratory Ruling that recognizes…

Many people go through a difficult time of life where it isn’t possible to keep up with your debts, and then things get better and they want to settle their obligations. By this time folks are often already hounded by a collection agency. If they’ve filed a lawsuit most folks understand the benefits of hiring…

A lot of telemarketers are assetless fly by night operations so that they appear useless to sue, and as such they generally really are smaller operations who depend on others to help generate their phone calls. Smart plaintiffs like Jay Connor don’t just name the telemarketer, they look at naming those to aid and abet…

Telemarketers and other scammey businesses love making it difficult to get out from under their thumb, and on February 16, 2024, the FCC issued Docket No. 02-278 reiterating that consumers can opt out of calls/robocalls using any reasonable means. Fortunately this has been the general rule in the nine circuit for some time, so this…

As our friend Mr. Troutman observes, the FCC’s “new” rules regarding revocation have recently come into effect. The FCC had previously stated that consumers can revoke consent using any reasonable means. You can refer to the detailed rulings in the FCC’s 2015 TCPA Declaratory Ruling. Much of the “new” regulations provide clarity and context around…

TCPA plaintiffs commonly find themselves in federal court after the defendant removes the case from state court. May of the pro se plaintiffs know that generally they get a ‘free’ amendment of their complaint as governed by FRCP 15 (check your local rules!): Amending as a Matter of Course. A party may amend its pleading…

Telemarketers have a list of judicial priorities: And not the least among them is just visiting a webpage is consenting to their terms of service. Even if you have to visit the page just to see them. Judges generally have not been willing to go that far, but some patron saints of telemarketers have done…

There is something to be learned from most motions to dismiss and the ruling, but the more the defendant works for it the more there is to get. And in Dobronski v. Uppleger, No. 25-10168, 2026 LX 130090 (E.D. Mich. Mar. 31, 2026) the defendant Advisorworld worked for it. They worked for it so hard…

I saw this recent filing and thought I’d share something that can happen in TCPA lawsuits. The case is Abramson v. Line 5, LLC, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 184573. Long time friend of the show Stewart Abramson sued Headstart Warranty Group LLC, a purveyor of vehicle service contracts. Defendant MLB Global sells them for Headstart,…

This blog has a running theme for Telephone Consumer Act Plaintiff’s – play defensive ball because TCPA defendants are quite willing to play dirty and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Even though the TCPA was written with the intent to have ordinary people take telemarketers to court, most courts don’t…