iWith the election cycle behind us we move into TCPAWorld’s version of March Madness–an onslaught of TCPA cases filed against various campaigns, PACS, and committees related to unwanted campaign calls and texts.
Setting the stage, campaigns by both parties have historically loved blasting randoms with robocalls and texts. I have no idea why since: i) this is plainly illegal; and ii) no one is going to vote for a candidate based on receipt of an unwanted robocall.
I am convinced that most of these things are false flag operations. (I once received a text saying “Trump is our national treasure” which I can only assume was sent by some left-leaning super PAC, or else the Republicans are really out of touch–Billy Corgan is our national treasure.) But enough about that.
First up in the 2021 TCPA political lawsuit bonanza, the National Republican Senatorial Committee. That name is almost too “on the nose” to be real and I assumed it was some made up outfit but it turns out its an actual Republican thing founded back in 1916.
Well apparently some guy named Rolando Camunas received “multiple text messages” from the NRSC although his number was on the do not call list. He sues NRSC for unspecified damages under the TCPA in federal court in Pennsylvania. The Complaint is here: Comunas complaint
Now I am willing to bet–but do not know–that these texts were sent via P2P. TCPAWorld readers will recall that the FCC issued a ruling blessing at least some forms of P2P technology last year. So that may mean the Comunas Plaintiff is in for an uphill battle. But I simply don’t know enough about the facts here to confirm.
Interestingly, the case is NOT pleaded as a class action. This might be a head fake by the Plaintiff’s lawyers–sometimes cases are pleaded individually and then converted to a class action after some initial discovery–but the folks at Kimmel & Silverman are not known to be complex litigators (I say that with love) so perhaps the NRSC will only face a few thousand in potential TCPA exposure here.
We’ll keep an eye on this one.
