One of the biggest stories in TCPAWorld history was the tale of Navient’s RICO suit against TCPA attorney Jeff Lohman.

The story went roughly like this. According to Navient–one of the nation’s largest student loan debt collectors–Jeff would work with other lawyers to find clients who had stopped paying their debt to Navient in a bid to get their student loans reduced. He would then counsel those clients to set up TCPA lawsuits by using certain vague phrases to ask for calls to stop. He would then sue Navient when the calls didn’t stop and leverage those lawsuits to obtain debt relief.

Navient viewed this as a RICO issue– they were being strong armed into waiving debt for no real reason. And the jury seemed to agree with Navient–awarding over $1MM against Lohman in a case that seemed to really swing the pendulum against those suspected of setting up lawsuits.

But there was a problem– despite Lohman’s alleged conduct in encouraging the lawsuits, it was Navient that had actually violated the law. And while the company might have felt unfairly targeted, it still had the last clear chance to avoid harm–it could have simply followed the law and listened to its customers. So the Court eventually threw out the judgment against Lohman–albeit two years later.

In the meantime Lohman had shut down his practice and opened a ping pong bar. (Seriously.)  When he got the news that he had won his case after all he reached out to the Czar and leapt to join the Deserve to Win podcast to tell his story.

And WHAT a story.

Lohman was dragged all the way to a jury trial by a company that was eventually found to have not been following the law–and yet it was Lohman that undoubtedly suffered the consequences.

Absolutely fascinating stuff. You will not want to miss this interview.

Before we get there though we break down some of the biggest stories in TCPAWorld, including:

• Macy’s winning a case claiming it took too long to process a revocation;
• A CEO escaping individual liability to Katz on personal jurisdiction grounds;
• Two guys who weren’t so lucky and DO now owe over half a million dollars personally in a TCPA suit;
• More on the ongoing saga over OpenAI’s legal woes.

Really a great episode and I think you’ll love it. Check it out now: