A federal judge granted summary judgment on February 12 to DirecTV,
LLC (DirecTV), holding it was not liable under the Telephone
Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) for unsolicited telemarketing calls
placed by a third-party vendor because DirecTV had clearly
instructed the vendor not to make any cold calls.
The class action, Cordoba et al. v. DirecTV, alleged
that DirecTV had violated the TCPA by authorizing a call center
vendor, Telecel Marketing Solutions, LLC (Telecel), to place
telemarketing calls to solicit subscriptions on DirecTV's
behalf without obtaining the called party's consent.
Specifically, Cordoba argued that Telecel had not kept an internal
do-not-call list or respected do-not-call requests, placing
unconsented-to telemarketing calls to nearly 17,000 individuals,
and claimed that DirecTV knew of and authorized those calls.
Telecel, an independent contractor, received commissions for each
customer that activated service with DirecTV.
