TCPA Lawsuit Alleges Unsolicited Robocalls from Kohl’s

A plaintiff from Connecticut is suing Kohl’s over allegations that the department store chain made unwanted cell phone calls, repeatedly violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Plaintiff Thomas M. says Kohl’s started calling his cellular phone in June 2015, using an automated telephone dialing system that left prerecorded messages on his voicemail. In July, he says, he spoke to a live representative of Kohl’s and requested that the company stop calling his number. Thomas says even after that request, Kohl’s continued to make robocalls to his cell phone.

Thomas now argues that the unsolicited phone calls from Kohl’s violated the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA. He claims he is entitled to up to $500 in damages for each call that Kohl’s placed in negligent violation of the TCPA, or each call placed before he requested to be removed from the Kohl’s call list.

Since Thomas put Kohl’s on notice that their calls were unwelcome, he argues that each call after that conversation was a knowing or willful violation, entitling him up to $1,500 in damages for each call placed after he requested to be removed from the call list.

The TCPA Lawsuit is filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut under case no. 3:15-CV-01569.

Consumer Protections Under the TCPA

Thomas’s claim is a fairly straightforward application of the TCPA. Congress passed the TCPA to create new protections against unsolicited phone calls from telemarketers and debt collectors. Today, the TCPA places restrictions on calls to residential lines and cell phones, as well as unsolicited text messages and faxes.

For cell phone customers like Thomas, the TCPA prohibits calls made to cell phone numbers using either an automated telephone dialing system or a prerecorded message – so-called “robocalls” – unless the recipient of the call has expressly consented to receiving such calls.

Similar protections apply to calls made to residential land lines. However, in those cases the caller can enjoy an exception made for having an “established business relationship” with the person they’re calling.

Consumers now have the right to revoke that consent in any reasonable way at any time. According to rulings by the Federal Communications Commission issued this past June, revocation of consent is indeed effective and does not need to be in writing.

Courts had previously construed the law to preclude revocation, or to require revocation to be in writing. But one FCC commissioner comments that revocation can be effective even if made by telling it to a checkout clerk at a retail location.

The TCPA is also the law behind the famous Do Not Call registry, a master list of both land lines and cell phone numbers for consumers who do not want to receive unsolicited phone calls. As with negligently made robocalls, violations of the Do Not Call registry protections can result in damages of $500 each.

As Thomas mentioned in his TCPA lawsuit, damages for TCPA violations run from $500 per negligently made call to $1,500 for violations made knowingly or willfully. It’s easy to see how a business that takes a “set it and forget it” approach to using an automated telephone dialing system can quickly commit hundreds of TCPA violations, exposing itself to thousands or millions of dollars in damages.

Where a large number of consumers have been similarly harassed by robocalls from the same source, those consumers may have a basis for a TCPA class action lawsuit. Consult an experienced attorney if you believe you may have a claim.

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If you were contacted on your cell phone by a company via an unsolicited text message (text spam) or prerecorded voice message (robocall), you may be eligible for compensation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

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