So I just covered the Gross case and I thought that was all the bad news I was going to have for today.

Nope.

Apparently back in May a court in Texas held that click and pause allegations were sufficient to state a TCPA ATDS claim even post-Facebook. This is true even where the Defendant asked for the Plaintiff by name!

In Callier, EP-20-CV-00304-KC, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126769 (W.D. Tex.  May 10, 2021) the court held:

When Plaintiff answered, he was met with silence for several seconds before the system connected him with a live agent. This reasonably suggests that Defendant placed the call using an automated system.

Well, that’s just peachy.

And the Court wasn’t bothered by the clearly non-random nature of the calls:

To be sure, that each agent asked to speak with “Armando” suggests that Defendant did not use a random number generator to produce its call list. Cf. Facebook, 141 S. Ct. at 1169 (finding no TCPA violation where the defendant “sent targeted, individualized texts to numbers linked to specific accounts.”). However, it is not unreasonable to infer from the pleadings that Defendant relied on a sequential number generator to place its calls. 

The case was apparently decided back in May but just popped up on Lexis today, seemingly to double the headache I have from Gross. 

I don’t like today.