Here’s another big one folks.

One company buys another company and then sends marketing messages to the form company’s customers.

Seems ok, right?

Nope and Lincare just found that out the hard way.

In Morris v. Lincare, Inc. 2025 WL 605616 (M.D. Fl. Feb. 25, 2025) a court certified a TCPA class action involving Lincare’s prerecorded messages to consumers who had consented to receive contact from a predecessor company.

In Morris the class members had all signed express written consent agreements with American HomePatient, Inc. However, Lincare apparently purchased the company and absorbed it various assets–including its contact list.

Lincare began sending prerecorded messages to the Plaintiff after the transition took place and Plaintiff sued arguing it had consented to calls from API, but not from Lincare.

While the Court in Morris did not answer the ultimate substantive question of whether or not the consent was valid it did certify the case as a class action finding that the issue of consent–amongst others–was common across the entire class. As such the court certified the case as a class action.

The result is that Lincare must now face suit over calls made to over 1,800 people and faces millions in potential damages– for doing nothing more than calling people that had consented to receive calls from a company it purchased.

This is an important case for folks considering as part of due diligence for an asset purchase or company acquisition. Troutman Amin, LLP commonly gets brought in a part of diligence reviews for mergers and acquisitions where TCPA issues are apparent. But many M&A teams completely miss TCPA risk– as Morris really highlights the need to pay attention to these issues and to understand the limits on using consent forms naming different entities.

Tired of #biglaw firms billing you like crazy and then trying to get you to settle TCPA class actions for millions?