The Sixth Circuit has granted a rare panel rehearing in Lucas v. Telemarketer Calling from (407) 476-5680 & Other Tel. Nos., a case filed under the Telemarketing Consumer Protection Act. Our sister SPB blog, TCPAWorld, one of the web’s leading sources for intelligence and lawyering on TCPA defense, has a detailed post here. The panel reversed a dismissal in favor of defendants that sold services to telemarketers, and remanded for the district court to determine whether the service providers knew their clients were using their platforms to violate the TCPA. As summarized at TCPAWorld:
An unusual rehearing twist and turnabout in TCPAWorld. The key, of course, is that the Sixth Circuit … recognized that platform providers might be liable beyond the mere auspices of agency and vicarious liability. Specifically, even in the absence of agency might a platform provider be liable merely because it “knowingly allowed its client(s) to use that platform for unlawful purposes[?]”
This is certainly a case worth watching for any company providing services to telemarketers.