Quiet Hours TCPA Class Actions: Defense Strategies
Navigating Uncertain Liability When the Recipient May Have Previously Consented

Course Details
- smart_display Format
Live Online with Live Q&A
- signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level
Intermediate
- work Practice Area
Class Action and Other Litigation
- event Date
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
- schedule Time
1:00 PM E.T.
- timer Program Length
90 minutes
-
This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
This CLE webinar will guide class action defense counsel through issues arising from the novel theory that violation of the "quiet hours" provisions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) subjects the sender to liability even if the recipient may have previously consented to receive such messages. The panel will discuss best approaches for these cases. They will review recent developments in TCPA jurisprudence, analyze plaintiff's wording of the pertinent quiet hours allegations, offer defense approaches to challenging certification, identify potential merits defenses, and posit discovery strategies for reducing settlement leverage.
Faculty
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Mr. Ross represents clients in business disputes, commercial and securities litigation, government investigations, and class actions. He is ranked by Chambers USA in Securities Litigation (2023), where he is ranked in Band 1, and in Commercial Litigation (2023). Clients described him in Chambers USA as “an excellent attorney with a sophisticated knowledge of Florida law,” a lawyer who is “thorough in his analysis of the issues and creates workable, cost-efficient plans to solve them,” and “strategic, and thinks about the bigger picture and how to manage a difficult opponent” (2023). He has extensive experience defending his clients in high-stakes commercial and securities litigation, nationwide class actions, shareholder derivative suits, breach of fiduciary actions, state securities actions, and government investigations. Mr. Ross has defended his clients through trial in cases involving challenging financial, corporate governance, and damages issues. He has prevailed on dispositive motions, defeated class certification, and successfully won appeals on novel issues of materiality, reliance, and causation under Florida law. Mr. Ross writes frequently on emerging issues in securities and class action litigation, and his analysis has been featured in the Florida Bar Journal, the Journal of Health and Life Sciences Law, Law360, and the Daily Business Review. Ian also serves on the editorial board of the Enhanced Scrutiny blog, where the Sidley team provides timely updates and analysis on M&A and corporate governance matters from the Delaware courts.

Mr. Watstein is a founding partner of WT and a nationally recognized litigator. He has successfully represented companies and individuals as lead counsel in a variety of litigation matters across the country, including approximately 400 national class actions. Mr. Watstein was recently ranked as a Band 1 litigator by Chambers USA alongside the practice he leads, which also received a Band 1 ranking (the highest designation, only awarded to a few practices and lawyers). He has substantial experience litigating dozens of types of consumer class action claims, including those involving privacy, false advertising, contract, the TCPA, FCRA, FDCPA, FCCPA, CIPA, Rosenthal Act, and other state consumer statutes, such as California’s UCLA and Florida’s FDUTPA. Mr. Watstein has litigated such cases through evidentiary hearings, trial, and appeal. He has also litigated numerous bet-the-company disputes for both plaintiffs and defendants. The cases and appeals Mr. Watstein has litigated have involved many billions of dollars and have spanned more than two dozen jurisdictions and arbitration tribunals across the country.

Mr. McGuinness litigates commercial disputes throughout the country and has significant experience in complex business conflicts. He regularly represents publicly traded companies and emerging businesses in industries that include financial services, retail, media and technology. Representing clients in consumer class and individual actions, Mr. McGuiness has deep experience at all stages of complex commercial disputes. He handles arbitrations, mediations, and court and jury trials and appeals. Mr. McGuiness is a frequent writer and speaker on class action litigation and consumer financial services.

Ms. Kang focuses her practice on commercial litigation and disputes and provides counsel as a full-service litigator in a wide range of industries, including consumer products and services, energy, oil and gas, apparel, food and dietary supplements, and real estate. Her experience spans all phases of litigation, from advising on pre-suit litigation risk management to guide business decisions, through fact investigation, discovery, and dispositive motion practice, to trial and post-trial motions. Ms. Kang's practice includes defending companies in consumer fraud litigation involving claims of false labeling and advertising, responding to pre-suit claims under the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act, and counseling companies on drafting online terms and conditions to mitigate litigation risk. She also has experience representing clients in a variety of matters involving California-specific issues, such as the California Environmental Quality Act and the Health & Safety Code, and the California Air Resources Board.
Description
The "quiet hours" provision of the TCPA (and many state counterparts) prohibits initiating a "telephone solicitation" to a residential telephone subscriber before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. local time at the called party's location.
As experienced practitioners know, calls or texts may be exempt from TCPA enforcement if the recipient gave prior consent or if the calls or texts were within an existing business relationship. In these new class action lawsuits, plaintiffs are alleging they received calls or messages outside quiet hours and that because they did not consent to receive calls or messages before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., the calls or texts violated the TCPA. This syllogism attempts to clear the predominance hurdle created by alleging merely that communications were "unsolicited."
Defense counsel have no established body of case law to which they can refer when responding to these new claims. A petition has been filed with the Federal Communications Commission to clarify that the quiet hours provisions do not apply if prior consent has been granted but has not been decided. Defendants need strategies for preventing costly discovery, advice about practically executing the strategy, and ways to prove they were operating in good faith to comply by creating and following sound policies and procedures. This can be especially difficult for quiet hours violations since there is no easy way to determine where mobile phones may be actually located at any given time.
Listen as this panel of TCPA class action defense experts discusses the defenses most likely to succeed, the challenges to certification, how to reduce plaintiffs' leverage, and non-litigation initiatives such as the petition currently pending before the FCC to curb these cases.
Outline
- Overview of TCPA
- New rules effective Apr. 11, 2025
- Quiet hours rules
- Allegations in quiet hours class actions
- Certification battlefields
- Strategies for limiting discovery
- Defenses and safe harbors
Benefits
The panel will review these and other key issues:
- Are quiet hours claims unsupported by the plain reading of the TCPA?
- What problems exist when trying to determine the "called party's location" for wireless devices?
- What are key strategies for limiting discovery?
- Does the TCPA cover text messages?
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