"Federal Scrutiny for Nonprofit Communications and Consent," by Eric Berman, was published on June 7, 2018, in The NonProfit Times. An excerpt:
A federal district judge dismissed a putative class action lawsuit alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by charities. Even for telemarketers and TCPA practitioners, Reese v. Anthem, Inc. might be easy to overlook. The decision is barely 10 pages long. It was issued by a court in Louisiana, hardly the TCPA litigation hotbed of California, Illinois, and Florida. And, two of the three defendants were 501(c)(3) charities, rare targets of TCPA litigation. The Reese decision in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana is worth noting, however. On the merits, the court's analysis provides some useful judicial gloss on the issues of TCPA consent and the distinction between commercial and informational communications. Perhaps more importantly, Reese follows on the heels of other cases, such as Wengle v. DialAmerica Marketing, Inc. and Spiegel v. Reynolds et al. that might foreshadow more aggressive efforts by the plaintiffs' bar to assert TCPA claims against nonprofit organizations and their for-profit partners or agents.
A federal district judge dismissed a putative class action lawsuit alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by charities. Even for telemarketers and TCPA practitioners, Reese v. Anthem, Inc. might be easy to overlook. The decision is barely 10 pages long. It was issued by a court in Louisiana, hardly the TCPA litigation hotbed of California, Illinois, and Florida. And, two of the three defendants were 501(c)(3) charities, rare targets of TCPA litigation. The Reese decision in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana is worth noting, however. On the merits, the court's analysis provides some useful judicial gloss on the issues of TCPA consent and the distinction between commercial and informational communications. Perhaps more importantly, Reese follows on the heels of other cases, such as Wengle v. DialAmerica Marketing, Inc. and Spiegel v. Reynolds et al. that might foreshadow more aggressive efforts by the plaintiffs' bar to assert TCPA claims against nonprofit organizations and their for-profit partners or agents.