In a case that was first reported by Eric Troutman at TCPAWorld, a District Court judge in Nevada has granted a defendant’s motion for summary judgment in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case in which a former debt collector purchased a prepaid cell phone for the purpose of suing companies that called him without consent.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Garcia v. Credit One Bank can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff purchased a prepaid cell phone that was allegedly for his father, but he never gave his father the phone. The plaintiff, who “maintained” several cell phones simultaneously and has filed TCPA lawsuits in the past, allowed the defendant to call the phone number 135 times before sending a letter revoking consent to be contacted. A vendor working on behalf of the defendant was attempting to reach the previous owner of the phone number to collect on an unpaid debt, but did not know the number had been reassigned.
The plaintiff filed suit, alleging the defendant violated the TCPA by contacting him on a cell phone without his consent, but because he waited so long to revoke consent, he did not take “the steps necessary to stop” the alleged injury — the unwanted calls, ruled Judge James Mahan of the District Court for the District of Nevada.
Even if he had suffered an injury in fact and had standing to sue, Judge Mahan said the plaintiff would not have been allowed to continue moving forward with his lawsuit because his injury did not fall within the “zone of interest” that Congress sought to protect when it enacted the legislation.
