TCPA Serial Plaintiff Strikes Again in Vicarious Liability Suit
Posted: Thu Dec 26, 2024 5:47 am
A recent decision in Cunningham v. Montes, has companies and their business owners that provide telephone dialing services on the edge of their seats. Why? Well, in this case the business owner was personally sued for Telephone Consumer Protection Act violations made by his customers—mostly local politicians—who used his website-based autodialer platform to send messages of their own to lists of their own targets.
Though the plaintiff, Craig Cunningham (yes, that Craig Cunningham—a serial plaintiff who has filed more than 150 TCPA lawsuits, of which 37 are currently pending) had no direct evidence that the defendant advertising data sent any of the messages himself, or even that he knew that some of the messages could be violative, the Court sent the issue to the jury to determine whether the defendant will be liable for the calls others placed using his equipment.
Background
To give you some context, defendant Michael Montes has owned and operated several businesses that provide autodialing, predictive dialing, and virtual telemarketer services to customers seeking to engage in high-volume telephone call operations. Virtual telemarketer services permit users to place telemarketing calls that play prerecorded messages for call recipients. Montes provided these services relevant to this case through a now defunct California company called TollFreeZone.com (also a defendant in the suit), which did not have any employees other than Montes.
Though the plaintiff, Craig Cunningham (yes, that Craig Cunningham—a serial plaintiff who has filed more than 150 TCPA lawsuits, of which 37 are currently pending) had no direct evidence that the defendant advertising data sent any of the messages himself, or even that he knew that some of the messages could be violative, the Court sent the issue to the jury to determine whether the defendant will be liable for the calls others placed using his equipment.
Background
To give you some context, defendant Michael Montes has owned and operated several businesses that provide autodialing, predictive dialing, and virtual telemarketer services to customers seeking to engage in high-volume telephone call operations. Virtual telemarketer services permit users to place telemarketing calls that play prerecorded messages for call recipients. Montes provided these services relevant to this case through a now defunct California company called TollFreeZone.com (also a defendant in the suit), which did not have any employees other than Montes.