Third Circuit Vacates New Jersey District Court's Dismissal of TCPA-related Case

TCPA Third Circuit

On October 14, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled the recipient – intended or not – of a prerecorded call has standing under the TCPA, so long as the recipient has sufficient ties to the number called. Leyse v. Bank of America NA, No. 14-4073 (3^rd. Cir. Oct. 14, 2015). In 2011, a roommate of the intended recipient sued a financial institution after answering a prerecorded telemarketing call seeking to advertise credit cards on behalf of the financial institution. In 2014, the District Court of New Jersey dismissed the case on the grounds that the plaintiff was not the intended recipient of the call and, therefore, lacked standing. The Third Circuit vacated that ruling, holding that the TCPA’s “zone of interests encompasses more than just the intended recipients of the prerecorded telemarketing calls” and that “[l]imiting standing to the intended recipient would disserve the very purposes Congress articulated in the text of the Act.”