In Avarado v. Bay Area Credit Service, plaintiff alleged that defendant violate the TCPA by calling her cell phone with a dialer and without consent.  Defendant denied that the dialing equipment was an ATDS under the TCPA, and moved the court to stay the case under the primary jurisdiction doctrine while the FCC clarified the definition of an ATDS.  The court denied the motion, finding that the court could apply the meaning of "capacity" as used in the statutory definition without additional guidance from the FCC, and because there was no indication that the FCC was likely to issue responses to the several pending petitions any time soon.

 

In Brailey v. F.H. Cann & Associates, plaintiff alleged that defendant violated the FDCPA, TCPA and FCRA in a variety of ways, including pulling his credit report without a permissible purpose, continuing collection activity without responding to plaintiff's timely request for validation and calling his cell phone without consent.   Defendant filed a motion to dismiss, arguing it had a permissible purpose for acquiring the credit report as it was a debt collector; that the FDCPA claim failed because a single unanswered call could not form the basis of a harassment claim, and that there was no plausible allegation that the call to the cell phone was made with an ATDS.  The court granted the motion.  The FCRA claim was dismissed because the court agreed that defendant, as a debt collector, had a permissible purpose to obtain the credit report.  As for the FDCPA claims, the court concluded that a single call, placed to a work number, could not be considered excessive as a matter of law, nor was there any harassing conduct by calling and not leaving a message.  Finally, the court found that plaintiff's failure to allege supporting detail regarding the nature of the call was fatal to the TCPA claim, and dismissed the claim because plaintiff had failed to show the call was made with an automated dialer.

 

In Reed v. Morgan Drexen, plaintiff alleged that defendant violated the TCPA by calling her cell phone without consent.  Defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that there was consent for the calls because plaintiff's spouse had provided the cell number, and that plaintiff lacked standing because she was not the subscriber of the cell phone.  The court denied the motion, finding that there were disputed issues of fact as to whether the calls received by plaintiff were directed to plaintiff's spouse, that there was an unsettled question regarding whether plaintiff's spouse had the authority to consent to the calls, and whether plaintiff or her spouse was the subscriber of the phone.

 

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