Third Circuit Expands Standing for TCPA Violations

So, you answer your roommate’s telephone and it is a prerecorded marketing call from a bank, alarm company, energy provider, phone company, credit card company, charity, etc. Does that give you the right to initiate a suit against the caller under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act? After all, it is not even your phone that was called. That was the issue presented in Leyse v. Bank of America, No. 14-4073 (3d Cir. Oct. 14, 2015), and in a per curiam decision, the Third Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling, holding that statutory standing extends to all those within the TCPA’s protected “zone of interests”—including those merely answering a call, regardless of whether they are the intended recipient or the registered subscriber for the phone.

The TCPA, 47 U.S.C. §227, et seq., was enacted to protect the privacy of residential telephone subscribers by prohibiting unsolicited, automated telephone calls made to home phone lines. Section 227(b)(1)(B) of the TCPA prohibits parties from “initiat[ing] any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the called party ….” Section 227(b)(3) of the TCPA creates a private right of action for “a person or entity” to enjoin violations and to recover the greater of the plaintiff’s actual monetary loss or $500 in statutory damages, per violation. Treble damages are available for knowing or willful violations. Id. The TCPA has opened the flood gates of opportunity to lawyers that specialize in plaintiff consumer actions, and courts are grappling with numerous TCPA related issues including standing.