Discovery disputes are a big part of TCPA cases and, practically speaking, it can be exceptionally difficult for defendants to produce all documents requested by TCPA plaintiffs… for several reasons. Requests for production and interrogatories tend to be worded as broadly as possible (generally to seek class information). Then, even with discovery requests that are agreed upon by the parties, the practical difficulty of obtaining and producing the requested material can range from difficult to nearly impossible.

In Nock v. PalmCo Administration, LLC, No. 1:24-CV-00662-JMC, 2025 WL 750467 (D. Md. Mar. 10, 2025), the District Court of Maryland showed leniency to the defendant, although it still ordered the defendant to at least attempt to produce nearly every material that the plaintiff had requested.

For some context, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant had violated 47 U.S.C. § 227(c), the Do Not Call (“DNC”) provision of the TCPA, and Md. Com. Law § 14-320, Maryland’s analogous DNC law. Id at *1. An informal discovery dispute was brought before the court based on the defendant’s purportedly incomplete responses to the plaintiff’s discovery requests. Id.

Firstly, the court found that an interrogatory seeking “all complaints ‘regarding [the defendant’s] marketing practices’” unreasonably burdened the defendant—since complaints relating to all marketing practices would clearly turn up material unrelated to the case’s subject matter. Id. at *2. However, the court still ordered production of all complaints related to the case’s subject matter. Id. at *3.

Secondly, the plaintiff sought production of documents that had previously been ordered by the court. Id. However, one of the categories of documents was outside the defendant’s possession—data from one of its vendors. Id. As the defendant demonstrated “reasonable efforts to obtain the requested information,” the court allowed the defendant to send one more email request to furnish missing data from the third-party vendor to fulfill the defendant’s obligations under the previous court order. Id.

Although this specific request did not fall under retention requirements, it is worth a reminder that the statutory Telemarketing Sales Rule recently expanded in what records must be kept for all telemarketing calls.

Thirdly, the plaintiff sought records of all communications between the defendant and a third-party vendor. Id. Similarly, the court was lenient with the defendant, even though the defendant had already missed a court ordered production deadline on those communications. Id. The defendant was still ordered to produce the communications within thirty days, but the court was understanding of the practical difficulties in producing all said communications. Id. at *3-4.

That is all for this order. However, the TCPA keeps seeing new rules and requirements. Most urgently, we are now less than a month away from new revocation rules coming into effect. Be ready for those changes as they are set to be implemented on April 11, 2025!