Illinois Federal Court Grants Class Certification in National Bank TCPA Case

An Illinois Federal Court recently granted class certification in a case alleging that a national bank and its third-party marketing firm violated the TCPA by successively calling telephone numbers registered with the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry.

The bank hired the marketing firm to call consumers to pitch them its banking services and residential mortgage products.  If a consumer expressed interest, the marketing firm representative would then transfer the consumer to a bank representative to complete the process.  The individual plaintiff claims that, even though he instructed the bank not to contact him again and had no prior relationship with the bank, he received four more unsolicited telephone calls from the same telephone number.

After fact and expert discovery, the court certified a “National DNC Class” consisting of “All persons within the United States whose phone numbers [i] are included in the [carrier’s] call detail records of [the marketing firm] produced in this matter, and (ii) received more than one call from [the marketing firm] in any twelve-month period while their phone numbers were registered on the National Do Not Call Registry for at least 30 days.”

The court also certified a subclass consisting of “All members of the National DNC Class whose call resulted in a transfer to [the bank or its holding company].”

In light of this order, the court has permitted the parties to conduct additional discovery, and the case remains pending.