Navient Solutions has agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging it violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by contacting individuals on their mobile phones using an automated telephone dialing system without obtaining prior express consent.
Navient agreed to the settlement, while denying any wrongdoing, even though it admitted that it was possible that the judge in this case could have ruled that the ATDS it used does not meet the definition in the statute, following a ruling in ACA International v. FCC. The defendant, however, decided that the cost of continuing to litigate the case outweighed the benefit of settling.
A copy of the settlement order in the case of Baker v. Navient Solutions can be accessed by clicking here.
The lawsuit includes 300,000 potential class members, who will each receive $8.33. The named plaintiff, Denise Baker, was a credit reference for an individual with a student loan and the defendant contacted her in an attempt to reach the borrower. As the named plaintiff, Baker will receive $15,000. The plaintiff’s lawyers will receive one-third of the settlement award.
The settlement was reached after a joint negotiating session with a mediator, a former U.S. Magistrate Judge.
