Showing 4 posts in Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Circuit Split Created as Eleventh and Seventh Circuits Narrowly Interpret Definition of Auto-Dialer Under the TCPA

We now have a split among federal circuits regarding the definition of an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS), under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which limits automated calls and text messages. What constitutes an ATDS has been debated both by the FCC and courts for quite some time. In 2008 and 2015, the FCC found that all predictive dialers were automated telephone dialing systems under the TCPA. In Marks v. Crunch San Diego in 2018, the Ninth Circuit, held that the TCPA applies to devices with the capacity to automatically dial telephone numbers from a stored list or devices that dial telephone numbers produced from a random or sequential number generator. Now, in Glasser v. Hilton Grand Vacations and Gadelhak v. AT&T Services, Inc., the Eleventh and Seventh Circuits have taken the opposite approach and found that an ATDS only includes equipment that dials randomly or sequentially. More ›

U.S. Supreme Court Resolves Circuit Split, Applies Occurrence Rule to FDCPA Statute of Limitations

Earlier this year, this blog reported on the Supreme Court's grant of certiorari in Rotkiske v. Klemm to resolve a split in circuits on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act's (FDCPA) statute of limitations. This week, in an 8:1 opinion delivered by Justice Thomas, the Court concluded that the one-year statute of limitations in the FDCPA begins to run when the violation occurs, not when the violation is discovered. In doing so, they overturned rulings by the Fourth and Ninth Circuit, which had held the FDCPA's statute of limitations was subject to equitable tolling. More ›

Lack of Standing Is Not Dead as a Defense to TCPA Actions

The Eleventh Circuit, in Salcedo v. Hanna, has concluded that receipt of a single unsolicited text, allegedly sent in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (the "TCPA"), does not constitute a sufficient "concrete injury" to confer standing under Article III of the United States Constitution. More ›

Creditors Beware: Collection of Debt Based on Unreasonable Belief/Understanding That the Debt Was Not Discharged in Bankruptcy Might Lead to a Finding of Civil Contempt

In Taggart v. Lorenzen, the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' Order, which affirmed the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel's Order vacating civil contempt sanctions against Bradley Taggart's ("Bradley") creditors for violation of a Bankruptcy Court discharge Order. On certiorari to the Court, the central issue was to determine "what the appropriate criteria should be for a Court to hold a creditor in civil contempt for attempting to collect a debt that a discharge order has immunized from collection." And, SCOTUS adopted an objective standard, which creditors should be mindful of going forward. More ›