Stellar Recovery Secures Milestone Victory in TCPA Case
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES, September 12, 2016 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Stellar Recovery secured an important court victory this month which significantly reduces the
legal risk associated with the use of telephone dialing technologies to contact consumers. As those
in the collection industry are well aware, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”)
prohibits the use of automatic telephone dialing systems (“ATDS”) when calling cellular
telephones. Just what constitutes an ATDS, however, has been a hotly debated question that Stellar
Recovery has now had answered in a resounding victory for the collection industry. On September
2, 2016 United States Magistrate Judge Anthony E. Porcelli of the US District Court for the Middle
District of Florida ruled that the LiveVox Human Call Initiator (“HCI”) application utilized by
Stellar Recovery to contact consumers on known cell phone numbers is not an automatic telephone
dialing system (“ATDS”) under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”). The case is
Pozo v. Stellar Recovery.
The Plaintiff in the case alleged that Stellar had violated the TCPA by calling his cell phone using
an ATDS. Stellar countered that the LiveVox HCI system that it used to call the Plaintiff required
human intervention to launch each call, did not have the capacity to auto-dial and contained no
predictive functionality or random or sequential number generating abilities and therefore did not
constitute an ATDS under the TCPA.
Judge Porcelli’s 13 page “common sense” analysis of the case provides a detailed overview of the
TCPA and the human intervention element, citing a wide variety of other cases that have addressed
the issues and focusing on the fact that HCI lacks the capacity to be an autodialer as defined by
the TCPA.
The impact of this ruling in Stellar Recovery’s favor is significant and will favorably impact
Stellar’s ability to collect debts for its clients in a compliant and cost-effective manner. In recent
years courts across the country have been inundated with TCPA lawsuits providing for statutory
damages between $500 and $1,500 per call, and interpretive rulings by the FCC have served to
complicate the issues and highlight the challenges that collection agencies face in balancing
efficient call placement with TCPA compliance. Stellar has invested considerable resources into
compliant dialing, and the Pozo ruling is especially significant because it represents the first time
that the HCI system has been judicially analyzed and found to be compliant. Stellar is mounting
further aggressive defenses of HCI in other jurisdictions and is pleased to be leading the way in
identifying and standing behind compliant calling systems. The benefit of Stellar’s approach to
compliant dialing is passed along to Stellar’s clients who can rely on Stellar to take all possible
steps to insure maximum TCPA compliance in the complex and ever-evolving legal and regulatory
landscape of consumer collections.
Stellar Recovery, Inc. is located in Jacksonville, FL. Please visit our website at
www.stellarrecoveryinc.com.
legal risk associated with the use of telephone dialing technologies to contact consumers. As those
in the collection industry are well aware, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”)
prohibits the use of automatic telephone dialing systems (“ATDS”) when calling cellular
telephones. Just what constitutes an ATDS, however, has been a hotly debated question that Stellar
Recovery has now had answered in a resounding victory for the collection industry. On September
2, 2016 United States Magistrate Judge Anthony E. Porcelli of the US District Court for the Middle
District of Florida ruled that the LiveVox Human Call Initiator (“HCI”) application utilized by
Stellar Recovery to contact consumers on known cell phone numbers is not an automatic telephone
dialing system (“ATDS”) under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”). The case is
Pozo v. Stellar Recovery.
The Plaintiff in the case alleged that Stellar had violated the TCPA by calling his cell phone using
an ATDS. Stellar countered that the LiveVox HCI system that it used to call the Plaintiff required
human intervention to launch each call, did not have the capacity to auto-dial and contained no
predictive functionality or random or sequential number generating abilities and therefore did not
constitute an ATDS under the TCPA.
Judge Porcelli’s 13 page “common sense” analysis of the case provides a detailed overview of the
TCPA and the human intervention element, citing a wide variety of other cases that have addressed
the issues and focusing on the fact that HCI lacks the capacity to be an autodialer as defined by
the TCPA.
The impact of this ruling in Stellar Recovery’s favor is significant and will favorably impact
Stellar’s ability to collect debts for its clients in a compliant and cost-effective manner. In recent
years courts across the country have been inundated with TCPA lawsuits providing for statutory
damages between $500 and $1,500 per call, and interpretive rulings by the FCC have served to
complicate the issues and highlight the challenges that collection agencies face in balancing
efficient call placement with TCPA compliance. Stellar has invested considerable resources into
compliant dialing, and the Pozo ruling is especially significant because it represents the first time
that the HCI system has been judicially analyzed and found to be compliant. Stellar is mounting
further aggressive defenses of HCI in other jurisdictions and is pleased to be leading the way in
identifying and standing behind compliant calling systems. The benefit of Stellar’s approach to
compliant dialing is passed along to Stellar’s clients who can rely on Stellar to take all possible
steps to insure maximum TCPA compliance in the complex and ever-evolving legal and regulatory
landscape of consumer collections.
Stellar Recovery, Inc. is located in Jacksonville, FL. Please visit our website at
www.stellarrecoveryinc.com.
Lashanna Gilbert
Stellar Recovery
904-438-2500
email us here