Unethical tcpa defense attorneys - what can you do?
- Peter Schneider
- May 20
- 5 min read
Not always, but lawyers and their clients tend to have a lot in common. So if you are a bottom feeding scum sucker who will do anything to make a buck, you probably will attract a similar cliental.
So not always, but often telemarketers and their lawyers have the same ethical bounds. This is frustrating for many pro se plaintiffs who are often in court because they feel an injustice happened in the dark. Only to feel that the court system itself is an injustice system in itself. Frequently there is really nothing that can be done about it because judges generally don't care, but on the other hand sometimes unethical lawyers start getting away with it so much they get so bold as to go too far. This may have happened in Margo Simmons v. WP Lighthouse 1:24-cv-01602, Doc 40 (S.D Ind.).
A little background. Margo Simmons is a telephone consumer protection act case with a fairly typical setup - a seller hired an unknown telemarketer to make calls on its behalf. Margo asked WP for information on who dialed the calls:
Plaintiff seeks discovery relating to individuals involved in the telemarketing campaign at issue, including call records, the identity of the BPO provider, the contract between the BPO provider and Defendant, and communications between such individuals and organizations and Defendant. Specifically, Plaintiff moves the Court to compel Defendant to provide "fulsome responses" to Interrogatory Nos. 2, 3, 7, and 8, and RFPs Nos. 5, 8, 9, and 14. (Dkt. 28 at 2).
Its aggravating but par for the course that a TCPA defendant use frivolous excuses not to produce discovery until compelled. Its made much worse for pro-se plaintiffs because the stick is paying the other side's attorney fees for bringing a successful motion to compel, not something a pro-se plaintiff can usually wield.
So in the opening act of this case, WP objected to requests for documents and interrogatories on fifth amendment grounds, and on just non-sense grounds.
It is well established that the Fifth Amendment protection from self-incrimination applies to natural individuals and not separate legal entities. Bellis v. U.S., 417 U.S. 85, 89–90 (1974); U.S. v. White, 322 U.S. 694, 698 (1944) (“The constitutional privilege against self-incrimination is essentially a personal one, applying only to natural individuals."); id. at 699 ("Since the privilege against self-incrimination is a purely personal one, it cannot be utilized by or on behalf of any organization, such as a corporation.”);
Margo won the motion but the court gave WP another opportunity to avoid paying the costs of bringing it. So far so good.
Then WP's attorney moved to withdraw but not for the standard reason:
this is not the typical withdrawal of counsel attempt where a lawyer has no other involvement in a case but for the fact that they have not been paid and intends to spend their time elsewhere in their practice. Here, Mr. Morse is (a) the subject of a pending Order for sanctions and (b) as recently as yesterday was found to be engaged in an ill-fated attempt at fraud on the parties and the Court where he admitted to forging his client’s signature in supplemental interrogatories in an attempt to comply with the Court’s prior Order compelling discovery. Mr. Morse only admitted to such when counsel for the Plaintiff confronted him with this fact while the parties were meeting and conferring regarding the Defendant’s insufficient supplemental responses to the Court’s Order.
How did WP's attorney get his tail caught in the door? By telling too many lies! His motion to withdraw said “the undersigned counsel has not received a responsive communication from WPL since April 23, 2025.” which was odd because WP's attorney produced supplementation of their discovery responses dated May 7, 2025.
Plaintiff’s counsel inquired with Mr. Morse if that was true during the meet and confer, and he confirmed that it was. As a result, Plaintiff’s counsel requested clarification on how the Defendant had verified the discovery responses on May 7, two weeks after the last time the Mr. Morse had heard from his client. The communication ended shortly thereafter, but Mr. Morse sent an e-mail later that night, which stated, “I realize that I made a mistake when I affixed Mr. Jaguines’ signature without further specific authorization from him to do so.”
Margo then asked the court to award it $8k in attorney fees for the motion to compel, and another $4.5k to prepare the document asking for for $8k.
Why do telemarketing lawyers forge their clients name to documents or make frivolous arguments or put forward other lies? As far as I can tell, it's in their nature, it seems to serve them well (until they get caught) and the court system usually does nothing again and again (emboldening the unethical attorney) until at some point the court can't look the other way and brings down a hammer.
My advice to pro-se TCPA plaintiffs dealing with an unethical opposing attorney is 1) stay out of the gutter yourself! It is verrrry easy to think that it is working for the other side so might as well engage in it yourself, but if you do, if and when the hammer comes down, it will hit you both. Further, a bad judge will ignore the dirty tactics of the the defense attorney and exaggerate your missteps, so just don't have any. And 2) keep pointing it out to the judge. Not in an endless stream of motions for sanctions, but constantly point it out in your briefing.
The patron saint of telemarketers is often a federal judge, but even they won't want to be seen as too biased, or if the wind starts blowing in your direction on a case they may suddenly be all about sanctioning the defendant to show how unbiased they always were.
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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