statutory damages

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One of the most hotly-contested issues in litigation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is what equipment counts as an “automatic telephone dialing system” (ATDS) triggering the TCPA’s restrictions.  In 2018, the D.C. Circuit threw out the FCC’s interpretation of the statutory definition of an ATDS—which was so broad as to encompass smartphones—as arbitrary and capricious.  (See our report on the D.C. Circuit’s ACA International v. FCC decision.)  In the wake of that decision—while parties await the FCC’s new rule—courts around the country have been weighing in how best to interpret the statutory text.

The issue is now the subject of a deep circuit split.  In recent months, both the Seventh Circuit in Gadelhak v. AT&T Services, Inc. and the Eleventh Circuit in Glasser v. Hilton Grand Vacations Co. (pdf) have concluded that equipment that dials from a pre-selected list of phone numbers does not qualify as an ATDS.  (Disclosure: Mayer Brown represented AT&T in Gadelhak; Archis was on the briefs in the Seventh Circuit.) The Seventh and Eleventh Circuits thus rejected the Ninth Circuit’s more expansive interpretation of ATDS in Marks v. Crunch San Diego, LLC.  (See our report on Marks.)  The Second Circuit, in contrast, recently followed the Marks interpretation in Duran v. La Boom Disco.

In light of this growing divide, lawyers on both sides of the “v.” are waiting for the Supreme Court to step in.Continue Reading Seventh and Eleventh Circuits Reject, But Second Circuit Follows, Ninth Circuit’s Expansive Autodialer Definition in Marks

The California legislature made headlines on June 28 when it passed—and the Governor signed—AB 375, a sweeping new data privacy bill known as the “California Consumer Privacy Act.” As further described in our colleagues’ report, the Act grants broad new privacy rights to customers of certain companies doing business in California.  In addition, the Act both provides for enforcement by the California Attorney General and creates a private right of action for some violations. Because of the latter feature, this new legislation may pave a new road to court for class actions in the wake of data breaches affecting California consumers.
Continue Reading New California Consumer Privacy Act increases the risk of additional data breach class actions

Good news for businesses that use fax machines to communicate with customers: A panel of the D.C. Circuit has just struck down the FCC’s 2014 order mandating that even faxes requested by the recipient that contain advertising material include a special opt-out notice. The decision issued today in Bais Yaakov of Spring Valley v. FCC, No. 14-1234 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 31, 2017), is available here (pdf).
Continue Reading DC Circuit invalidates FCC’s opt-out requirement for solicited faxes

iStock_000027020861_DoubleWe’ve often argued that when the principal rationale for approving a low-value class settlement is that the claims are weak, that is a signal that the case should not have been filed as a class action in the first place. The Second Circuit recently reached that exact conclusion when considering a proposed class settlement in a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) case, holding that the putative class couldn’t be certified and that the FDCPA claims should be dismissed.
Continue Reading Second Circuit holds that class action seeking “meaningless” relief shouldn’t be certified

For years, defendants have argued that federal courts may not entertain class-action lawsuits when the plaintiff does not allege that he or she suffered any concrete personal harm and instead relies solely on an “injury in law” based on an alleged exposure to a technical violation of a federal statute. As we (and others) have contended, Article III of the U.S. Constitution places limits on the jurisdiction of federal courts, and therefore forbids lawsuits when a plaintiff has not suffered an “injury in fact”—one of the critical elements of standing. That requirement has constitutional dimensions; as the Supreme Court explained in DaimlerChrysler Corp v. Cuno, “[n]o principle is more fundamental to the judiciary’s proper role in our system of government than the constitutional limitation of federal-court jurisdiction to actual cases or controversies.” Thus, although Congress enjoys significant latitude to create private causes of action, it cannot invent standing to sue in federal court when, in the absence of the federal statute, a plaintiff could not allege a real and palpable injury.

Nearly two years ago, the Supreme Court appeared poised to answer the question whether Congress can essentially create Article III standing in First American Financial Corp. v. Edwards. But—in a surprising turn of events—the Court dismissed the case as improvidently granted on the last day of its term. Readers can be forgiven if they don’t remember the occasion, as it was the same day that the Court issued its far more attention-getting rulings in the health-care cases. Yet the non-decision was extremely significant: as Deepak Gupta, one of the leading appellate lawyers in the plaintiffs’ bar, tweeted, “On pins and needles for First Am Fin’l v Edwards standing decision tomorrow. Oh yeah, and I hear there’s some health thing pending too.” Kevin Russell of SCOTUSblog similarly observed: “Lost in the hubbub of the health care decision is the Court’s surprise punt in a case that many (including myself) thought would be the sleeper case of the Term.”

Fast forward to now: As soon as next Friday (March 7), the Supreme Court will decide whether to grant a petition for certiorari (pdf) that we have filed in Charvat v. First National Bank of Wahoo, which presents essentially the same question as in First American: “Whether Congress has the authority to confer Article III standing to sue when the plaintiff suffers no concrete harm and alleges as an injury only a bare, technical violation of a federal statute.”Continue Reading Cert Petition Asks Supreme Court To Decide Whether Congress Can Allow Uninjured Plaintiffs To Sue In Federal Court

Congress and state legislatures have enacted many statutes that provide for minimum statutory damages recoveries that are far in excess of the actual damages most individuals will suffer. A prominent example is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which offers $500 per violation of the statute, trebled to $1500 for willful violations. The idea is that offering such damages will create incentives for individual plaintiffs to pursue such claims in court when actual damages are minimal or difficult to measure. But the numbers can quickly add up when such statutory damages claims are aggregated as part of a putative class…
Continue Reading Is There New Hope for Challenging Aggregated Statutory Damages?

A few months ago, my colleagues Kevin Ranlett, Phil Dupré, and I began writing a six-part series for Inside Counsel on potential constitutional challenges to class-action lawsuits. The series is now complete, and so I wanted to provide readers with links to our articles. In addition to our overview piece on the subject, we have addressed the following topics:

  • Using due process and federalism-based arguments to prevent plaintiffs from applying a single state’s law to a nationwide or multi-state class in an attempt to sidestep the variations in states’ laws that otherwise would preclude class certification;
  • Challenging proposed

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Continue Reading Are Class Actions Unconstitutional? Yes (At Least Sometimes)

Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear argument in United States v. Bormes, a case that apparently has not captured the attention of most class action practitioners. That’s understandable: The question presented (pdf) is “whether the Little Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a)(2), waives the sovereign immunity of the United States with respect to damages actions for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq.” But the impetus for the federal government’s request for immunity—the enormous liability generated by aggregating statutory damages in a FCRA class action—is one that routinely affects businesses targeted by similar class actions. Businesses therefore should stay tuned to see what, if anything, the Court might say about the concerns that result from piling up large amounts of potential statutory damages in class actions.
Continue Reading Federal Government Acknowledges Undue Risk of Potentially Massive Liability from Class Actions for Statutory Damages Under the Federal Credit Reporting Act, but Proposes a Solution Good for One Defendant Only