TCPA “Robocall” Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against ARL

The TCPA lawyers at Gibbs Law Group LLP, Joseph J. Mellon, and Andrew L. Quiat, filed a class action lawsuit against Americans for Responsible Leadership (ARL), an Arizona-based non-profit corporation.  The lawsuit alleges that ARL sent pre-recorded phone advertisements or “robo-calls” to personal cell phones without consent, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

According to the complaint, the plaintiff received several pre-recorded messages from ARL, urging her to vote for Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election.  The class action was filed on behalf of individuals in the U.S. who received one or more similar calls to a cellular phone without prior, expressed consent for the calls.  The plaintiff seeks a court order prohibiting the corporation from making similar calls in the future, as well as appropriate statutory damages for every call that the ARL made to members of the class.

Robo-calls are phone calls that use a computerized autodialer to deliver a pre-recorded message.  The TCPA was passed in 1991 to protect consumer privacy and stop automatic dialing practices.  The act makes it illegal to call any telephone number assigned to a cellular telephone service using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial prerecorded voice, and imposes strict liability for violations.  The TCPA also gives consumers the right to sue for any violations of the law involving autodialers, cell phone calls, prerecorded messages, faxes and/or do not call lists.