A critical question in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) cases is whether the plaintiff gave consent to receive communications from the defendant, and whether that consent had been revoked by the time of the communication. Given the problems with the TCPA in general, you would probably not be surprised to learn that the TCPA does not specify how a person can revoke consent. The TCPA lawsuit industry wants a world where a person can give formal consent to receive communications and then revoke it on a whim. This “anything goes” revocation standard can expose companies to sudden and sizable liability.
Thankfully, the Second Circuit held in Reyes v. Lincoln Automotive Financial Services that a person who gives consent as part of a bargained-for exchange cannot unilaterally revoke it. Where a consumer consented as part of the consideration for the contract, the company can continue to rely on that consent.
Irrevocable consent under Reyes is anathema to TCPA cases because most companies are––or soon will be––including appropriate consent language in their agreements with their customers.
The big question facing companies now is whether Reyes will expand beyond the Second Circuit. While some early trends were bad, we are happy to report that two district courts in the Eleventh Circuit have relied on Reyes to grant summary judgment in TCPA cases.
The first of these two cases is Few v. Receivable Performance Management, in which the Northern District of Alabama granted summary judgment in a single-plaintiff case. In Ms. Few contract with her satellite TV provider, she agreed that the provider and any debt collector acting on the provider’s behalf could contact Ms. Few at a particular phone number. A debt collector then called Ms. Few to recover an alleged debt, and Ms. Few said that she did not wish to receive calls. The debt collector nevertheless called or texted more than 180 times.
No dice, ruled the district court. In the absence of controlling Eleventh Circuit precedent, the court found Reyes persuasive and applied the bargained-for exchange rule: “because she offered that consent as part of a bargained-for exchange and not merely gratuitously, she was unable to unilaterally revoke that consent.”
The Middle District of Florida––a notoriously dangerous TCPA jurisdiction for defendants––reached a similar result in Medley v. Dish Network, LLC. The plaintiff, Ms. Medley, complained that her lawyer had effectively revoked her consent to be contacted by Dish, which responded with a Reyes argument. The court agreed with Dish, and cited the Northern District of Alabama’s Few case with approval. It also helpfully distinguished several cases that had permitted unilateral consent revocation.
These cases are good news for companies facing TCPA liability in the Eleventh Circuit. While the appeals court has recognized federal common law governs issues of giving and revoking consent, it has not yet addressed Reyes and the effect of a bargained-for exchange. It is hoped that Few and Medley will lead a trend toward further adoption of Reyes.
The takeaway in litigation is to press the Reyes issue. Some courts have reached unfavorable conclusions when addressing consent and revocation in the abstract, but courts have been more receptive to defendants that can point to the particular inequity of a plaintiff getting the benefits of consent in a contract and then repudiating the contract to obtain a TCPA windfall.
Specific to the class-action context, the adoption of Reyes affords multiple chances to defeat class claims. Early summary judgment practice on consent and revocation can put putative class representatives on the defensive, and potentially complicate plaintiff’s efforts to show adequacy, commonality and typicality. Putative class representatives may also have to resort to individualized facts to show why they should be allowed to back out of the deal that included their consent, potentially putting plaintiffs on the horns of a dilemma: Save the class and risk losing the whole case, or save the case and risk losing the class-action payday.
We’ll close with a practical point: Companies should be studying their consumer-facing agreements to determine whether a consumer’s consent to receive telephone communications is––or can be reconfigured to be––part of a bargained-for exchange. Companies can help manage their TCPA liability by crafting their customer agreements appropriately as to arbitration (including a non-severable class action waiver), indemnity, and the bargained-for nature of consent. These preventive measures, deployed effectively, can both dissuade the prowling packs of TCPA lawyers from bringing a claim in the first place, and also strengthen the company’s defense if litigation is filed.