The mechanics of holding telemarketers personally liable under the TCPA for their illegal calls
- Peter Schneider
- Nov 22, 2024
- 8 min read
Updated: Jul 10
About a week ago I discussed the pros and cons of holding telemarketing corporate executives personally liable for the unwanted calls. This case out of the middle district of North Carolina demonstrates how to do it to executives in a larger organization who probably didn't personally know much about the calls themselves.
In TCPA lawsuit Cunningham v. Wallace & Graham, PA et al, plaintiff Cunningham is a United States army veteran and in 2023 he began receiving unsolicited phone calls related to contamination at Camp Lejuene. Cunningham played along and unmasked several law firms who where hiring telemarketers to find potential Camp Lejuene plaintiffs for their own lawsuit purposes. Cunningham filed suit for the unwanted calls and the defendants moved to dismiss.
One of the many things the law firm defendants wanted out of was the claims of personal liability against their individual officers. Spedifically, they argued that Cunningham's complaint “fail[ed] to plead that any individual defendant’s involvement was significant, that any exercised active oversight, or that any had knowledge of or direct participation in the alleged unsolicited calls”. The court clapped back:
The complaint alleges that LeBlanc “mastermind[ed]” the supposedly “illegal telemarketing scheme” and that the Individual Defendants “personally participated in the actions” described in the complaint by signing the retainer agreement sent following the calls, personally contacting Cunningham to persuade him to sign the agreement, “overseeing the corporate Defendants’ marketing efforts,” and “generating business from and personally supporting the telemarketing calls.” At this early stage, the court finds that Cunningham has plausibly alleged that the Individual Defendants personally participated in the alleged TCPA violations.
Now seeing the court's opinion of the sufficient allegations to survive a motion to dismiss and making them yourself are two different things so it might be instructive to see Cunningham's original complaint.
Now one reason Cunningham got away with naming personally naming the individual defendants is he sued them where they lived, not in Cunningham's home state of Texas. Had Cunningham tried to sue them in Texas he would have had to show that Texas had jurisdiction over each individual defendant and that might have been impossible to do. Keep this hurdle in mind yourself - a court must have jurisdiction over each individual defendant or any judgement rendered is voidable.
By choosing to sue in North Carolina, that court had general jurisdiction over many of the defendants and it likely was much easier to show that court had specific jurisdiction over the rest. Cunningham calls it right out:
Venue is proper in this District pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)(2) because a substantial part of the events giving rise to Plaintiff’s claims—namely, the illegal telemarketing at issue—were orchestrated from this District and was for potential litigation to be filed by law firms located in this District.
These are the allegations Cunningham leveled at the individual defendants that were sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss:
¶32: The promise of potentially easy, quick money and lucrative payouts led [defendant] Mr. LeBlanc to mastermind an illegal telemarketing scheme to mass dial numbers throughout the United States the following month to generate as many Camp Lejeune claimants as possible with minimal scrutiny.
¶61. During the calls, Defendant Mona Lisa Wallace denied knowing anything about or having any records for the illegal telemarketing alleged and stated, “We do everything in house here. . . . We’ve got a big firm and we don’t need it.” “Our firm does not do robocalls. . . . I’ve never associated with any law firm that does.”
¶62 However, Defendant Mona Lisa Wallace had no problem of boasting about being on the steering committee for Camp Lejeune litigation or that she was responsible for “suing the crap out of” and obtaining $500 million from the U.S. government, which she apparently has records for, but supposedly has no records for how such clients were obtained.
¶64. When asked how Mona Lisa Wallace was getting Camp Lejeune leads, she responded, “Well, that’s none of your business.”
¶66. During a call with Mona Lisa Wallace and Joel Rhine, the Plaintiff asked for Defendants’ do not call policy and to be placed on the Defendants’ do not call list.
¶67. The aforementioned Defendants denied the aforementioned requests stating, “We have confidentiality agreements. . . . We’re not giving you any information.”
¶68. Demonstrating control over the callers, Defendant Rhine went on to say, “I received a phone call too, and I stayed on it. . . . And as soon as I identified myself [to them], they stopped it.”
¶69. Defendants Wallace and Rhine stated with righteous indignation that they would get the authorities involved and that they would reach out to the Plaintiff, but nobody did.
¶71. Under the TCPA, an individual such as the individual Defendants may be personally liable for the acts alleged in this Complaint pursuant to 47 U.S.C. § 217 of the TCPA, which reads, inter alia: “[T]he act, omission, or failure of any officer, agent, or other person acting for or employed by any common carrier or user, acting within the scope of his employment, shall in every case be also deemed to be the act, omission, or failure of such carrier or user as well as of that person.” 47 U.S.C. § 217 (emphasis added).
¶72. The individual Defendants personally participated in the actions complained of by: (a) personally signing proposed retainer agreements sent as a result of the illegal calls; (b) personally making contact with the Plaintiff in an effort to attempt to get the Plaintiff to sign the retainer agreement; (c) personally overseeing the corporate Defendants’ marketing efforts, which included the use of telemarketing, new client marketing, and intake; (d) personally generating business from and personally supporting the telemarketing calls complained of herein; (f) personally refusing to take responsibility and provide the Plaintiff a copy of their do not call policies and place the Plaintiff on their do not call lists as required by law; and (g) taking responsibility for TCPA compliance and fielding TCPA-related complaints but then failing to take any action when presented with a complaint regarding the same.
Cunningham had a few specific facts about some individual defendants but no pictures of them with their hands on the telephone, and it was sufficient to tie them into the illegal calling scheme.
We always want to stand on the shoulders of giants. Speaking of which, here is an Anthony Paronich written complaint personally naming corporate officer Shlomi Cohen.
Mr. Paronich didn't spend a lot of ink alleging Mr. Cohen's specific actions, but it probably is sufficient:
Mr. Cohen is the primary operator of ETN America and is liable for its conduct . . . Mr. Cohen personally participated in the actions complained of by: (a) selecting the script that was going to be used on the calling; (b) personally approving in the call center operations and (d) personally authorizing any other telemarketing conduct of ETN America. Indeed, Mr. Cohen has previously been sued for the same conduct on behalf of ETN America.
If you look at Washington State Division I case Hoffman v. Logan, No. 81887-2-I, 9 (Wash. Ct. App. Jul. 26, 2021):
“[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.
It worked for Mark in Dobronski v. Training Force LLC, 2025 WL 1427042 (E.D. Mich. May 16, 2025). Mr. Dobronski sued Training Force LLC and the two Florida resident members of the LLC, Mr. Pichard and Ms. Prichard, for violations of the telephone consumer protection act. They moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. Mark's allegations against them more or less boiled down to "Claude and Tina “orchestrated, directed, [and] personally authorized” the unsolicited fax transmissions . . . Here, the individual defendants, Claude and Tina, personally directed, participated in, and authorized the unsolicited advertisements."
In many jurisdictions, If the district court elects to decide the motion “on written submissions alone,” the plaintiff’s burden “consists of a prima facie showing that personal jurisdiction exists.”
Since the Court will decide the current motion on “written submissions alone,” Dobronski’s prima facie showing may be established through the complaint’s reasonably particular allegations of “sufficient contacts between” Tina “and the forum state” to satisfy both Michigan’s long-arm statute and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. In this procedural setting, the Court construes the pleadings and any affidavits in Dobronski’s favor without weighing Tina’s “controverting assertions . . . seeking dismissal.”
Dobronski won the motion to dismiss.
Mr. Matthews has been battling Senior Life Insurance Company. He sued them for TCPA violations, and the responded with and won a motion to dismiss. Matthews v. Senior Life Insurance 2025 WL 1181789 (E.D. VA April 22, 2025). Mr. Matthews responded by amending his complaint, naming the phone agent Daniel Swisa as a defendant.
Who is Mr. Swisa? The phone agent who fielded the illegal call!
Plaintiff spoke to Defendant Daniel Swisa who identified himself as “calling from Senior Life.” Insurance license records with the Florida Department of Financial Services indicate that Swisa has a license to write policies for SLIC from August 27, 2024, to September 30, 2026. Swisa was an employee of SLIC and acting at the direction of SLIC when he attempted to sell SLIC’s products and services.
Well done Mr. Matthews - SLIC (Senior Life Insurance Company) played stupid games and he gave SLIC a prize for being stupid. Mr. Matthews also got the last laugh on the motion to dismiss in Matthews v. Senior Life Insurance Co., 2025 WL 1899984 (E.D. Va. July 9, 2025.):
The additional facts included in Plaintiff’s amended complaint establish standing and sufficiently state a claim for the purposes of FRCP 12(b)(6). Plaintiff’s original complaint was devoid of factual development and contained only the conclusory allegations that the calls at issue were “from [SLIC]” and that Swisa was an employee of SLIC. Therefore, the Court found that the original complaint did “not include facts—other than those which are conclusory—linking SLIC to the phone calls.” Plaintiff’s amended complaint remedies those deficiencies. The amended complaint contains more factual support for Plaintiff’s claim including the details about Swisa’s license as an agent with SLIC, that the callers, including Swisa, identified themselves as calling “from SLIC,” and that they were selling SLIC insurance. These facts both establish Plaintiff’s standing and sufficiently state a claim
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.
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