A District Court judge in California has approved a plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary settlement in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case which will see a collection agency pay $6.8 million in cash and debt forgiveness after making calls using an artificial or pre-recorded voice or an automatic telephone dialing system.
A copy of the order approving the preliminary settlement in the case of Cortes v. National Credit Adjusters can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff accused the defendant of calling his cell phone at least 25 times and continued after he had revoked consent to be contacted. The plaintiff said he never consented to receiving the calls in the first place.
More than 5,100 individuals are included in the class-action, each of whom will receive $141 as part of their settlement. The named plaintiff will receive $2,000, and the plaintiff’s attorneys will receive $1.1 million under the terms of the settlement.
The defendant will pay $1.8 million in cash and forgive $5 million in unpaid debts. About 4,900 individuals will have $1,104 in debt forgiven under the settlement.
The settlement will include two classes of individuals. The first are individuals who subscribed to call management applications and received calls from the defendant without providing the proper consent. The second class will be made up of individuals who live in California and received calls using an ATDS from the defendant during 2016.
The settlement was reached after more than of “arms-length and adversarial negotiation” which was brokered in part by a mediator and is satisfactory given that the defendant “is unlikely to withstand greater liability than the proposed settlement amount,” wrote Judge Morrison C. England, Jr., of the District Court for the Eastern District of California.
