Leyse v. Bank of America National
Assn. – 3d Circuit – October 14, 2015
A “regular user” of a phone line, such
as the roommate of the intended recipient of a robocall advertising for credit
cards, held to have standing to sue
under the TCPA, 47 USC 227, even though the roommate was not the “called party”
or “intended recipient.”
The
TCPA, 47 U.S.C. § 227, as well as its
associated regulations prohibits any person from, among other things, “initiat[ing]
any telephone call to any residential telephone line using an artificial or
prerecorded voice to deliver a message without the prior express consent of the
called party, unless the call is initiated for emergency purposes or is exempted
by rule or order by the FCC.”
The court held that the roommate came within the “zone of
interests’ that the TCPA was meant to protecr, given the interests and purposes
of the statute. It held that the
evidence made it “clear that the Act’s
zone of interests encompasses more than just the intended recipients of
prerecorded telemarketing calls. It is the actual recipient, intended or not,
who suffers the nuisance and invasion ofprivacy. This does not mean that all
those within earshot of an unwanted robocall are entitled to make a federal
case out of it. Congress’s repeated references to privacy convince us that a
mere houseguest or visitor who picks up the phone would likely fall outside the
protected zone of interests. On the other hand, a regular user of the phone
line who occupies the residence being called undoubtedly has the sort of
interest in privacy, peace, and quiet that Congress intended to protect.
