Personally naming corporate officers involved in illegally telemarketing you

Personally naming TCPA defendants is a method to directly hold them accountable for the illegal calls

It can be a good idea to personally name corporate officers involved in illegally telemarketing you. Many telemarketers use corporations as a disposable appendage. If they get hit with a large lawsuit their plan is to dump the old corporation and start a new one. "We'll be another business in three minutes". In these situations the only way to make a judgement stick is to put it on the person getting rich from the illegal telemarketing calls.

Generally, to bring the corporate officers involved in illegally telemarketing you into a lawsuit in your jurisdiction you need to show that person was involved in the calls you received.

"[i]ndividuals who directly . . . violate the TCPA should not escape liability solely because they are corporate officers" and a corporate officer is deemed to have "made" a call, and thus liable under the TCPA, if the officer "had direct, personal participation in or personally authorized the conduct found to have violated the statute." His argument also ignores that Washington courts extend personal liability to corporate officers who supervised, directed, or approved wrongful business conduct." Hoffman v. Logan, No. 81887-2-I, 4 (Wash. Ct. App. Jul. 26, 2021)

However you must show your court has jurisdiction over the corporate officer "the plaintiff bears the initial burden of making a prima facie showing of the jurisdictional facts." In TCPA lawsuits this is typically going to be a two step process - showing they knew or should have known they were reaching into your state with their illegal telemarketing phone calls, and the lawsuit resulted from the illegal telemarketing phone calls. Otherwise any judgement could be void.

“A judgment entered without personal jurisdiction of a party is void and a superior court does not have personal jurisdiction over a party lacking minimum contacts in Washington or if service of process was improper.” Hoffman

In Hoffman, the plaintiff was able to exercise jurisdiction over defendant Logan by alleging

"Upon information and belief, Defendants Betta, Horn, and Logan had direct, personal participation in causing the illegal telemarketing calls alleged in this complaint to be made, and they directly authorized these illegal telemarketing calls to be made. They failed to take efforts to implement appropriate policies or procedures designed to comply with the federal laws and regulations that are the basis for this cause of action. They authorized and ratified the illegal telephone calls. They refused to alter their company's business practices and continued to place illegal prerecorded and automated telephone calls to telephone consumers in violation of federal laws after being sued at least 12 times in federal court since 2012 for engaging in illegal telemarketing practices. Defendant Betta's, Horn's, and Logan's contacts with Washington state were and are sufficient that they could reasonably anticipate being ha[i]led into court here." Hoffman

The practical advice to you - Note the names of who gets on the phone. Note the names on contracts or documents. Be friendly and see if you can ask who is running the company. Some people might be interested in if the company is hiring and who at the company they could talk to about that. These are prime people to personally name for illegally telemarketing you.

If you work with us on pursuing damages, we will look at their business structure. Perhaps they are so small the corporate officer(s) must be involved in the TCPA violations.

Would you like a free case review? Do you have a question or a telemarketing, debt collection, or bankruptcy case that would make a great blog article? We might even review your pro-se complaint or motion in a blog post. Email peter@nwdebtresolution.com and/or nathen@nwdebtresolution.com and we may answer it for everyone!

Are telemarketers harassing you in Washington, Oregon, or Montana? My Washington State TCPA plaintiff law practice can help, just give us a call at 206-800-6000 or email peter@nwdebtresolution.com.

The thoughts, opinions and musings of this blog are those of Peter Schneider, a consumer advocate and Washington State plaintiff's TCPA attorney at Northwest Debt Resolution, LLC. They are just that, his thoughts, opinions and musings and should be treated as such. They are not legal advice. If you are looking to file a lawsuit for TCPA violations and unwanted calls please contact me for a consultation.