Call Accounting Featured Article

Is A Human Call Initiator Also An ATDS?

  By Mandi Nowitz, Web Editor

An Illinois federal judge recently ruled that LiveVox (News - Alert) Human Call Initiation (HCI) does not fall under the category of an Automated Telephone Dialing System, based on the Telephone Protection Act (TCPA). Arora filed against Transworld Systems Inc. (TSI (News - Alert)) on the basis that they violated the rules of the TCPA when they called his cell phone numerous times via ATDS and without his previous consent to do so. Two similar cases occurred in September 2016 and in February 2017.

TSI was quick to claim that it uses LiveVox Human Call Initiation (HCI), a web-based dialing program. Arora has disputed that, but the judges handling the case did not feel that there was enough provided evidence, thus the ruling was not in Arora’s favor. US District Court Judge Charles P. Kocoras handed down his final ruling and added this at the end: “Therefore, this Court, like the previous Courts who have considered this technology, finds that that Human Call Initiator system does not constitute an autodialer. Because all calls from TSI were made with human intervention, and not with an ATDS, Arora’s TCPA claim fails as a matter of law. For the aforementioned reasons, the Court grants the motion and enters judgment in TSI’s favor and against Arora. It is so ordered.”

This was a victory for LiveVox as it has now won 4 out of 4 cases: “LiveVox is very excited that our HCI system has now won 4 out of 4 cases, each one in a different circuit. We think that this provides very strong validation for our approach to TCPA risk mitigation and for point and click technology in general,” General Counsel, Mark Mallah explained.

As for TSI, the Chief Financial Officer, David Zwick remarked: “We are pleased with the court’s ruling in favor of TSI on summary judgment. Compliance with the TCPA, as well as all rules and regulations, is something we take very seriously at TSI. We have made significant investments in our Compliance Management System and we intend to continue to vigorously defend ourselves against meritless litigation. This case further re-enforces the need for Washington to modernize the TCPA to reflect today’s mobile consumer.”

But, knowing how close businesses come to the proverbial “line” without crossing it, call accounting becomes imperative to validating claims, regardless of perspective.  Maintaining proper logs and CDRs makes it easy to prove compliance with local, state and federal regulations.