A plaintiff who has filed more than 30 lawsuits against companies alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act has some very interesting reasons why he ported an old landline phone number to his cell phone.
Jan Konopca has settled more than 30 TCPA lawsuits and received more than $800,000. There is only one more lawsuit remaining and even though the judge admits that Konopca is probably manufacturing the harm he has faced in order to be able to sue the defendant, the judge admitted that Konopca was called more than 600 times by the defendant even though he never gave consent to be contacted on his cell phone.
Konopca said he switched the landline phone number to a cell phone because squirrels were chewing through the phone wires at his house. The last four digits of the number are all the same, which makes it easy for his mother, who lives back in Poland, and the women that Konopca meets at bars, to remember. Phone records indicate that Konopca’s mother has called him twice in four years and that there is no evidence to suggest a woman he met at a bar has ever called him.
The judge in the case recently denied a motion from the defendant, FDS Bank, to dismiss the lawsuit. The judge said that one call is enough to show standing that harm was caused, let alone the 600 calls that Konopca received.
FDS was calling to collect on a debt owed by Konopca to Macy’s. He told the company to stop calling him and that request went unheeded.
