District of New Jersey Grants Summary Judgment in Favor

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Defendant on TCPA Claim Finding That Human Intervention Necessary to Place Calls Removed Calling System from Definition of ATDS
On December 20, the District of New Jersey granted summary judgment in favor of a defendant in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case, finding the calling system at issue was not an automatic telephone dialing system because the system required human intervention to initiate calls.

In Collins v. National Student Loan Program, plaintiff Maurice Collins alleged he received 206 calls from NSLP in a ten-month period, some of which were placed after Collins had requested that NSLP stop calling architect data user list him, in violation of the TCPA. The parties submitted cross-motions for summary judgment, focusing on the issue of whether an ATDS was used to place calls to Collins.

It was undisputed that NSLP uses two LiveVox calling systems—LiveVox HCI and Quick Connect—to place calls to borrowers. LiveVox HCI is used to call cell phones, while Quick Connect is used to call landlines. LiveVox HCI requires a caller to “physically click a dialog box to launch the call,” while the “Quick Connect system uses some predictive capabilities to call landline numbers.”