Guest Post: District Court Rejects Vicarious Liability Claims under the TCPA

By Alexa Cannon

A Michigan district court recently weighed in on the availability of vicarious liability for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (the “TCPA”). In Kern v. VIP Travel Servs., the plaintiffs received several dozen telephone calls from United Shuttle Alliance Transportation Corp. (“USA”). Kern v. VIP Travel Servs., 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71139 (W.D. Mich. 2017). The calls were made over a three month span to cell phones which were registered on the national do-not-call registry. When answering the calls, plaintiffs heard an automated voice telling them, “Pack your bags! You’ve won a Disney Vacation!” Id. at *3. The voice directed the plaintiffs to press 1 to reach a representative in order to reserve a date at various vacation resorts of their choosing. After plaintiffs spoke to a representative, they were directed to a website in order to purchase the packages at a discounted rate. Plaintiffs made reservations to stay at three resorts and received emails from the resorts confirming their reservations.

Plaintiffs contended that the telephone calls made by USA violated the TCPA, and that the resorts were vicariously liable for the calls. Examining the vicarious liability of the resorts, the court first noted that “[a]n entity may be vicariously liable for TCPA violations ‘under a broad range of agency principals.”  Id. at *16.  The court then went on to examine the claims against the resorts under principles of actual authority, apparent authority, and ratification.

Actual Authority

In reviewing the plaintiffs’ claims as to actual authority, the court focused its analysis on the resorts’ rights to control the agent’s actions. Id at *17. When analyzing the facts here, the court determined there was nothing in the complaint that created a reasonable inference that the resorts had the right to control USA. The court noted that even if the resorts contracted with USA to solicit customers, this was not enough to establish that the resorts had the right to control USA. Id. at *19. The court therefore concluded there was no supporting evidence to prove that USA reasonably believed that the resorts had given it authority to make calls which violated the TCPA, thus actual authority was nonexistent.

Apparent Authority

The court next turned its attention to the plaintiffs’ assertion that USA had apparent authority on behalf of the resorts to make calls which violated the TCPA. Here, the court focused on whether the resorts had held USA out to third parties as possessing sufficient authority to commit the particular act in question. Id. at *19. The court ruled that there were no well-pleaded allegations to suggest the resorts gave USA access to detailed information about their vacation packages, or gave USA to authority to enter customer information into Resort’s database. The court reasoned that although USA knew the price of the vacation packages, the duty rested on the Plaintiffs to confirm their reservations because USA could not finalize the transaction. In short, the court concluded that the plaintiffs’ apparent authority argument failed because the resorts never “held out” USA as possessing sufficient authority to make the violative calls.

Ratification

Lastly, the court examined the plaintiffs’ argument that the resorts should be held vicariously liable due to their ratification of USA’s actions. The court took issue with plaintiffs’ ratification argument and noted that the complaint did not provide the court with any reasonable inference that the resorts were aware of USA’s unlawful calls. Therefore, the resorts never affirmed USA’s actions.

Rejecting the Plaintiffs’ vicarious liability argument, the court rendered a dismissal for both resorts. The opinion should be welcomed by defense counsel defending TCPA violations as it provides guidance to the extent at which vicarious liability can hold a party liable under federal common law agency principles for a TCPA violation by a third  party telemarketer.

 

About the Author.  Alexa Cannon is a rising third year law student at Campbell University and is a summer law clerk with Smith Debnam Narron Drake Saintsing & Myers, LLP.