TCPA: The Muddled Madness Continues!

Tuesday evening, the Federal Communication Bar Association held a seminar in Washington designed to help practitioners make some sense of the ever-expanding number of class actions that have been brought under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA") by often over-zealous plaintiffs' attorneys; the inconsistent decisions that have been rendered by the courts; and the scores of requests for declaratory rulings that are currently pending before the Federal Communications Commission ("FCC," "Agency," or "Commission"). While the participants on the seminar's two panels (the first designed as a litigation update and the second intended to provide a look down the road) quibbled over substance throughout the evening, they did seem to share one common perspective: the TCPA is a mess!