In Ikonomidis v. Duggins Law Firm, plaintiff alleged that defendant violated the FDCPA by falsely implying that it would sue the debtor to recover a previously obtained judgment.  Defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing there was not threat of litigation, but instead efforts to collect on the existing judgment.  The letter to plaintiff was on law firm letterhead, but was not signed by the lawyer.  The court concluded whether the letter was an implied threat was a question of fact to be decided by the jury, and denied defendant’s motion.

 

In Bates v. Dollar Loan Center, plaintiff alleged that defendant violated the TCPA by calling his cell phone with a  dialer and without consent.  Defendants moved for summary judgment, contending that an ATDS was not used to launch the calls, and that vicariously liability should not apply to TCPA claims.  In finding that the equipment was an ATDS, the court found the argument that the calls were manually dialed “irrelevant” because the equipment had the present capacity to autodial if the numbers to be called were placed in the appropriate pool.  Moreover, the court found that vicarious liability can be applied to claims under the TCPA,  and calls made by an agent can expose the principle to liability.

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