Bradford
PHILADELPHIA – A Pennsylvania lawmaker won’t be punished for making automated phone calls to constituents, as an appeals court has rejected a lawsuit brought under a federal telemarketing law.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit last week ruled for House Majority Leader Matthew Bradford, who found himself one of the many defendants around the country taken on by attorney Andrew Perrong.
Perrong, who is based in Jenkintown, uses the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to file suit over unwanted texts and calls. Among his nearly 200 defendants in federal court is a Missouri law firm, OnderLaw, that represents clients suing over the weedkiller Roundup.
He tried to claim texts providing updates on their cases violated the TCPA, which OnderLaw denied. The firm recently settled, but Rep. Bradford chose to fight his case all the way to the Third Circuit after being denied judgment in Philadelphia federal court.
Lawmakers and the governor’s office filed briefs supporting his cause, since his automated texts informed constituents about public health resources, employment opportunities and upcoming events. The TCPA focuses on calls and texts advertising commercial services.
“Indeed, we hesitate to impose liability on state legislators when they act ‘not for their private indulgence but for the public good,’” Judge Anthony Scirica wrote.
“Here, it is evident that the calls were made for the ‘public benefit,’ rather than ‘private indulgence.’”
The TCPA has been used by lawyers for years to file proposed class actions against defendants that would quickly settle only the plaintiff’s claim than risk facing a trial that could end in millions of dollars in damages to an entire class.
Even plaintiffs got in on the act. One woman kept a shoebox of phones with recycled Florida phone numbers and chronicled the telemarketing calls she received on them in order to sue.
But Bradford’s calls weren’t made for any commercial purpose. One advertised an event to help constituents obtain health care coverage, a second told them they could earn up to $27 an hour as part of the 2020 census team and another informed them of a document-shredding event.
Further calls were about a family fair and government programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. No calls concerned any re-election efforts, and the others were paid for with funds allotted to lawmakers “for any legislative purpose or function.”
“Such communications related to the health, safety and general welfare of the people clearly serve the ‘public good…’” Scirica wrote.
Perrong has taken on other personal injury firms than OnderLaw, suing Wilshire Law Firm, DV Injury Law and Sunset West Legal Group, among others, over texts to clients. Many of his plaintiffs have filed multiple cases, something common for TCPA lawyers.
Perrong has been a plaintiff in his cases as well. He sued conservative Charlie Gerow during Gerow’s failed 2022 run for governor but lost when Judge Mia Perez granted Gerow summary judgment.
“Perrong and Gerow are attorneys admitted to practice in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,” Perez wrote in a footnote.
“And yet their briefing, or lack thereof, fails to comport with the most elemental principles underlying motions practice.”
They failed to cite legal authorities to make their arguments, and Gerow never responded to Perrong’s unsuccessful motion for summary judgment, she wrote.
