There are few attorneys in TCPAWorld as scary as Mike Greenwald.

He is currently ranked second on the TCPAWorld power rankings–behind only the Godfather himself–but rulings like this one may make him number one again next year.

In Lyle v. EGS Financial Care, 2024 WL 3649605 (N.D. Ga. Aug. 2, 2024) Greenwald’s firm convinced a court to compel a Defendant to produce all records of outbound calls to wrong number sets–a massively burdensome exercise that may end up being fatal to any chance the defendant had of defeating certification in the case.

Backing up, it is illegal to call wrong numbers using regulated technology–including autodialers and pre-recorded calls.

LiveVox may or may not be an autodialer but it is certainly capable of sending prerecorded calls. So if you are using LiveVox you should probably pay attention.

EGS Financial was apparently tracking wrong number dispositions in LiveVox and using the platform to send prerecorded voice messages. In litigation Greenwald requested EGS produce all records of such calls to numbers that ended up with a wrong number notation in the system.

EGS opposed arguing the production was too expensive but failed–apparently–to document that expense or any attendant burden of production. As such the Court had little trouble compelling the production:

while Defendant has alluded to the expense it would have to bear for retrieving from LiveVox the call records that Plaintiff requests, it has made no showing regarding that expense. As such, the Court has no basis to assess whether the discovery Plaintiff seeks is disproportionate to the needs of the case. And, in view of Defendant’s failure to address this issue, the Court considers this issue conceded.

Eesh.

The Court also found the defendant failed to argue the lack of necessity of the records despite the fact the defense had apparently provided a ample of data already.

Real lesson here for litigators.

When opposing a production you must ALWAYS challenge the need for class data pre-certification. There simply is no need for it and if you fail to make that argument–AND produce evidence of burden–you may end up having to produce records needlessly, just like EGS must now. Pretty basic stuff.

So while I am giving Greenwald credit here, it looks like EGS may not have made the right arguments to begin with.

Regardless, another big win for one of the most dangerous men in TCPAWorld.

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