iThis one is really unbelievable.
So Diana Mey is a well-known TCPA litigator who sues people that call her all the time. And the truth is, she is really good at it.
How good?
Well, she just whomped–that’s a word–a bunch of folks in connection with calls she received and netted over $800k as a result–on just 104 calls. In other words, she walked away with over $7,900.00 per call!
She pulled off this trick by leveraging both the TCPA and the WVCCPA–a state Mini-TCPA statute whose statutory damage provision adjust with inflation (wild!) and is currently worth upwards of $5,300.00 per violation! Plus the Court trebled TCPA damages against the defendant.
All of this followed the Defendants (now Appellants) Judson Phillips, Steve Huffman, John Preston Thompson, Capital Compliance Group, Co., and Music City Ventures, Inc., apparent failure to respond to discovery fully. (Remember how I told you discovery can be an incredibly effective tool to get rid of cases?) The Court sanctioned these folks by striking their answers and entering default judgment against all of them.
Wow… so much ouch.
But last week the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling finding that the Court acted within its discretion in levelling the massive penalty. The ruling is Mey v. Phillips, et al. 2023 WL 4140014 (4th Cir. 2023).
Making matters worse the Defendants–many of whom are individuals–claimed they had not made the calls at all! But it didn’t matter. Because they failed to respond adequately to discovery demands they were sanctioned and had their ability to fight the case stripped. So they have to pay even if they weren't liable to begin with!!!
Few takeaways here:
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Diana Mey is not to be taken lightly. She has proven to be an incredibly effective litigator;
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Folks being sued in a TCPA case should NEVER rest easy unless they have competent counsel on their side fighting hard and following the rules;
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The damages in even individual TCPA suits can be devastating–only 104 calls are at issue here and the damages were nearly a million dollars; and
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State law mini-TCPAs remain even more dangerous than the TCPA in many instances.
Indeed, there is a major theme on TCPAWorld regarding state laws right now– in the last few days we have seen more claims filed under OTSA, a revival of claims under FTSA, and now a massive award under the WVCCPA.
