The case of TCPA dismissed despite the false steps of the defense in Gutman v. Bast

For anyone who wonders why it is so important to hire lawyers who know the TCPA inside and out, here is another fun example.

In Gutman v. Liberation Bankers Insurance, 2025 WL 615128 (DNJ February 26, 2025) a court dismissed a TCPA lawsuit after making its own review of the complaint and determine that it was insufficient for obvious reasons.

Interestingly, however, the defendant’s own lawyers had lost the key problems and moved to dismiss on unrelated and irrelevant land.

In other words, the defendant should have lost because he challenged the wrong problems. But the court saw the defects in the case so obvious that he could not allow the case to continue.

Holy Moly.

When analyzing the motion, the court said the following: “As an initial issue, none of the parties addresses significantly if the complaint meets the elements required to declare any of the claims under the TCPA.“

I mean, that’s just crazy. The complete concept of a 12 (b) (6) is to challenge the elements of a claim are not declared.

But the court carried out the analysis for the bankers of Liberty and determined:

The regulated technology claim fails because there were no accusations that an ATDS be used; and
DNC’s claim fails because the plaintiff did not claim the residential use of his telephone or received more than one request in a period of 12 months.

Anyone who practices the defense of TCPA would have seen those problems immediately.

But according to the order of the court, the defendant simply lost those problems and focused on the “failure” of specifically claiming the dates and times of telephone calls, which he will never win as a motion to dismiss the land.

Eesh.

But anyway, the defendant went with W and TcpaWorld left with a reminder: do not expect the court to rescue it.