After years of litigation in federal courts across the country over purported Telephone Consumer Protect Act (TCPA) violations, there has been a recent shift in focus to what is known as mini-TCPAs being enacted by state legislatures which seek to regulate intrastate telemarketing communications. In particular, dozens of putative class actions have been filed over
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) generally restricts making certain non-emergency calls
to cellular phones and landlines, among other things, without the called party’s consent. However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has created a number of exemptions on which business have come to rely. A new FCC Order significantly limits those exemptions.
Background
The TCPA
It is not atypical for class actions to be brought seeking damages that can be characterized as nominal 
in nature. An oftentimes powerful incentive for potential class representatives to put their names on a putative class action is the promise of an incentive payment or award, paid to the class representative out of a class
Seyfarth attorneys Jordan Vick, Robert Milligan, and Bart Lazar provided a back-to-basics primer on TCPA and CAN-SPAM rules and penalties regarding text, calls, and emails, plus helpful best practices with respect to using third-party vendors and externally sourced marketing lists.
With the Supreme Court recently upholding the constitutionality of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), political campaigns, PACs, and grassroots GOTV organizations now know the tools by which they will be allowed to go to battle as it relates to the use of text messaging to get out the vote, raise awareness and raise funds.
Yesterday, a divided Supreme Court issued a plurality opinion in Barr v. American Association of Political
Consultants, Inc. (“Political Consultants”) striking down and severing a 2015 amendment to the TCPA, which exempts government debt collection calls (“government debt exemption”) from the statute’s general prohibition on calls to cell phones (“cell phone ban”). The
From court closures and the way judges conduct appearances and trials to the expected wave of lawsuits across a multitude of areas and industries, the COVID-19 outbreak is having a notable impact in the litigation space—and is expected to for quite some time.
To help navigate the litigation landscape, we are kicking off a webinar
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Eastern
12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Central
11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Mountain
10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Pacific
Consumer spending in the US plunged more than 13% as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As states begin reopening and marketers begin refocusing on
A blog post authored by Seyfarth attorneys Darren Dummit, Robert Milligan and Stanley Jutkowitz, titled 
“Mass Texts: How the Cannabis Industry Must Deal with the Surge of TCPA Class Actions During Covid-19,” was referenced in a new story from Law.com.
The Law.com article explores how TCPA class actions are targeting the cannabis industry.
Seyfarth Synopsis: On May 6, 2020, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a First Amendment challenge to a 2015 amendment to the TCPA, which exempted calls regarding debts owed to the government from certain of its prohibitions. While most Justices seemed to agree that the exemption was a content based restriction on speech, the