As previously discussed on this blog, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) prohibits “telephone solicitations” to numbers listed on the National Do-Not-Call list (NDNC). There is a rarely litigated exception to the TCPA’s do-not-call provisions, however, for calls placed by or on behalf of tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations. On October 11, 2017, in Spiegel v. Reynolds, No. 1:15-cv-08504 (N.D. Ill.), a putative nationwide class action, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois held both that (1) the TCPA’s nonprofit exemption from do-not-call liability extends to a professional fundraiser acting on behalf of the nonprofit under federal common law agency principles – even if the majority of the money raised for the nonprofit is paid to the fundraiser; and (2) calls seeking charitable donations are not “telephone solicitations” actionable under the TCPA, even if the donations will be – in part – used to procure goods for charitable recipients.
In Spiegel, the plaintiff claimed that several fundraising calls were placed to his residential telephone number in 2013 and 2014, while his number was on the NDNC list. He sued the principals of the charity, The Breast Cancer Society (Society), as well as the Society’s paid fundraiser, Associated Community Services, Inc. (ACS), alleging that such fundraising calls to him and other United States residents violated the TCPA.Continue Reading In Landmark Decision, Court Defines the Contours of the Tax-Exempt Nonprofit Exception to the TCPA
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The New York State Department of Health recently proposed a new set of regulations that would loosen marketing and advertising laws affecting New York’s medical cannabis program. The proposed regulations were published in the New York Register on August 23, 2017, and are open for a 30-day public comment period before the new regulations are to take effect.
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