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A class action lawsuit alleging that Ally Financial violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by calling family members of those in debt without their consent has been tossed out by a Michigan federal court judge.
U.S. District Judge Paul D. Borman rejected all claims in the Ally class action lawsuit, saying that Ally Financial does not use the type of dialing equipment that the U.S. Supreme Court recently declared triggers liability under the TCPA, Law360 reports.
Lead Plaintiff Christine M. Barry said in the Ally lawsuit that the financial company violated the TCPA by calling the cellphones of relatives and acquaintances of delinquent car loan borrowers to “pressure the borrowers to make payment on their loans to avoid the embarrassment of being perceived as ‘deadbeats.’”
The calls violated the TCPA because they were made without recipients’ consent using an automatic telephone dialing system, according to Barry per the Ally lawsuit.
However, Borman cited a recent Supreme Court ruling which states that the dialing equipment must use a random or sequential number generator to qualify as an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) when he dismissed Barry’s Ally class action lawsuit.
“In this case, plaintiff does not dispute that defendant’s autodialer system did not use a random or sequential number generator in connection with its calls to her (or to the purported class members),” he said.
“Rather, these calls were targeted at specific individuals in connection with specific accounts held by defendant. That ends this case.”
Earlier in the year, Barry argued that she was likely called because her number was on a stored list, but said that should not preclude her claims as Ally still had the ability to store and produce numbers using a random or sequential number generator and she should be entitled to discovery.
However, Borman said that while the TCPA prohibited the unlawful use of an ATDS to make a call, it did not outlaw simply the existence of one of the systems.
“To accept plaintiff’s argument that she only has to show that the autodialing system used by defendant has the capacity to use a random or sequential number generator, even though she concedes that such alleged capacity was not used to make the calls to her (or to the purported class members), would have the effect of imposing liability on a defendant whenever it has such a system, with admittedly no nexus to the alleged harm to the plaintiff,” Borman wrote.
Borman added that, following the recent Supreme Court decision, Barry had not proven Ally called random numbers generated by an ATDS, which was required for the case to proceed.
Do you think companies should be able to call relatives of those in debt? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section!
Barry is represented by Mohammed O. Badwan of Sulaiman Law Group Ltd.
Ally Financial is represented by Ethan G. Ostroff and Mark D. Kundmueller of Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP.
The Ally Financial TCPA Class Action Lawsuit is Barry v. Ally Financial Inc., Case No. 2:20-cv-12378, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
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One thought on Federal Judge Tosses Class Action Lawsuit Alleging Ally Financial Violates TCPA
No calling relatives. It violates FDCPA rules.