Photo by Mikes Photos on Pexels.com

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

An eagle-eyed reader pieced this together and alerted us to the story on Friday. I thought it was interesting so here’s the scoop: apparently a TCPA lawsuit was filed in federal district court for the Eastern District of Virginia last Tuesday on behalf of a guy with six cell phone numbers who also happens to have died back in March of 2017. Hmmm.

The Complaint in Melvin Chapman v. Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC Case No. 2:18-cv426 (Filed Aug. 7, 2018) alleges that the Plaintiff received unwanted automated debt collection calls to six different cell phones. The complaint can be found here: Chapman v Portfolio Recovery Associates. Although one may properly wonder why anyone needs six cell phone numbers, the larger question is why the Complaint alleges that Mr. Chapman “lives” in Virginia when–according to this obituary in the Virginian Pilot–he apparently died over a year ago.

Notably the Sixth Circuit recently ruled that TCPA claims survive death, so the Chapman case may not be entirely baseless. But it does seem a bit odd that the claim would be made in the name of the deceased, as opposed to by a personal representative etc.

I reached out to Plaintiff’s counsel for comment but have not heard back. I’ll update if I learn more. Enjoy the week TCPAland.