Month: October 2026

$9.8 Million in Two Texting Settlements: The Growth Playbook Gaps Behind Teleflora and Coast Dental

SMS is one of the highest-converting channels a growth team can run. It is also one of the easiest to get sued over. Two settlements disclosed in October 2026 put a combined price of up to about $9.8 million on two ordinary-looking gaps in texting programs.

The two cases

Teleflora, $6 million. In Carter v. Teleflora LLC (Miami-Dade County Circuit Court, Case No. 2026-012979-CA-01), Teleflora agreed to settle claims that it sent promotional texts to people who never provided their numbers and whose numbers were on the National Do Not Call Registry. The class covers people who received more than one promotional text within 12 months, starting May 9, 2021, on a number registered for at least 30 days. The estimated payout is about $251 per class member. Teleflora denies wrongdoing. The final approval hearing is November 25, 2026.

Coast Dental, up to $3.84 million. In Chaviano v. Coast Dental Services, LLC, filed in Florida in July 2026, Coast Dental agreed to pay up to $3,840,664 over appointment-related texts and calls allegedly sent after consumers replied STOP. The claims were brought under the TCPA and the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act. The class is roughly 24,308 people, each eligible for up to $59 in cash or a toothbrush voucher worth up to $99. The final approval hearing is December 9, 2026.

Gap one: list acquisition without suppression

Teleflora’s fact pattern is a familiar growth move: reach people who are not yet customers. When the number did not come from the person, consent is hard to show, and registry status becomes the whole case. If your acquisition plan includes texting numbers you did not collect yourself, the National DNC Registry check belongs in the pipeline, not in a checklist someone forgets.

Gap two: lifecycle messages that ignore opt-outs

Coast Dental’s fact pattern is subtler. Appointment reminders and scheduling nudges feel like service messages, so they often run on a different system or a different team’s automation. The allegation is that people who opted out kept receiving them. For growth teams, the lesson is that an opt-out has to reach every automation that can send to that number, including retention and re-engagement flows.

Why these become class actions

Both cases are defined by a process, not an individual message. When the same gap affects every recipient, it creates a class. Class sizes in the tens of thousands are normal, and that is how a modest per-person payout becomes a multimillion-dollar fund.

What it costs per contact

A quick way to make this real for leadership: both settlements land at a few hundred dollars or less per class member, but the totals run into the millions because the classes are large. Teleflora’s estimated payout is about $251 per person. Coast Dental’s class is roughly 24,308 people. Multiply a small per-contact risk by a big list and the number gets attention fast. That is the case for spending on suppression before scale, not after.

The growth-safe SMS checklist

  • Document the source and consent for every number in a promotional send.
  • Scrub non-customer numbers against the National DNC Registry before the first message.
  • Route STOP replies to a single suppression list that every sending platform reads.
  • Audit lifecycle and reminder flows, not just campaign blasts.
  • Screen lists for known litigation risk before launch.

That last item is where TCPALitigatorList.com fits into a growth stack. It lets teams check numbers against known TCPA litigators before a campaign goes out, so the contacts most likely to file are removed upstream. It complements consent capture and DNC scrubbing rather than replacing them.

Takeaway

Neither of these settlements came from a novel legal theory. They came from scale meeting a process gap. Growth teams that build suppression and screening into the pipeline can keep texting aggressively without handing plaintiffs a ready-made class.

Sources

When a TCPA Lawsuit Is the Product: What the Human v. Fisher Sanctions Mean for Growth Teams

Growth teams like to think of TCPA risk as a compliance problem: consent language, opt-out handling, calling windows. A ruling out of Missouri is a reminder that part of the risk is something else entirely. Some of the people entering your funnel are not prospects. They are building a lawsuit.

On September 30, 2026, Judge Matthew T. Schelp of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri found that Daniel Human’s TCPA suit against Fisher Investments was brought “in complete bad faith.” The court held Human, his attorney Edwin Butler and Butler Law Group LLC jointly and severally liable for all of the reasonable attorney’s fees Fisher incurred defending the TCPA claims, from the beginning of the litigation (Human v. Fisher Investments, Inc., No. 4:24-cv-01177-MTS).

The setup, as the court described it

The court found that Human provided his number under a fake name to request solicitations, then sued once Fisher called. It called this his “practice” and noted that dozens of earlier defendants had settled similar claims. It also found that Human destroyed his desktop computer two days before a court-ordered inspection and arrived with a decoy laptop, and that his lawyer knew the claims were illegitimate when he took the case.

Fisher must file its fee records by October 22, 2026. Fees for Fisher’s separate fraud counterclaim are excluded from the blanket award.

Why this is a funnel problem

Think about how the lead arrived: a person filled in a request, and the company followed up. From a dashboard, that looks like a healthy inbound conversion. The difference between a buyer and a plaintiff is invisible at the top of the funnel unless you look for it.

That has a few implications for teams that live on lead volume:

  • Lead quality metrics should include legal risk. A source that delivers high contact rates but also delivers repeat litigants is not a good source.
  • Purchased and partner leads deserve the most scrutiny. The further you are from the original form fill, the harder it is to prove consent later.
  • Speed-to-lead has a cost. Calling within seconds is great for conversion. It also means nobody looks at the number before the dialer does.

The settlement math growth teams should know

The detail worth sharing with finance is that dozens of companies settled with the same plaintiff before Fisher fought. That is the rational choice in most cases. Statutory damages under the TCPA run $500 per violation and up to $1,500 if willful or knowing, so a handful of calls can produce a demand that is cheaper to pay than to litigate. Serial filing works because the math works.

Fisher’s result shows what it takes to break that math: litigation running since 2024, a fight over a forensic inspection and a sanctions motion. Most growth-stage companies will never be in a position to do that. They need to avoid the exposure instead.

Build the screen into the stack

The practical answer is to put a check between lead capture and the first touch. TCPALitigatorList.com gives outbound and growth teams a way to scrub numbers against known TCPA litigators and serial filers before they reach the dialer or the SMS platform, so the riskiest contacts never become part of a campaign. It works alongside consent and DNC compliance rather than replacing them.

Pair that with consent capture you can actually prove: the form, the disclosure, the timestamp and the source. If a dispute does come, those records are what let you push back rather than pay.

Takeaway

Human v. Fisher is a rare win against a manufactured TCPA claim. For growth teams, the lesson is not to wait for a court to sort out who is a real prospect. Sort it out at intake, before the first call or text goes out.

Sources

Florida’s Proposed Anti-Spam Act Could Reshape SMS Marketing in a Key Growth State

Florida is one of the largest consumer markets in the U.S. and, for anyone running SMS or outbound programs, one of the most legally complicated. That complexity may be about to grow. On September 17, 2026, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier proposed the Florida Anti-Spam Communications Act, a crackdown on scam calls and texts that would also change how legitimate marketers handle consent and opt-outs in the state.

For growth leaders, the proposal is a signal to revisit SMS strategy before the bill text arrives, not after.

The proposal at a glance

Announced in Pembroke Pines and covered by Spectrum News, WCTV and TCPAWorld, the proposal centers on fraud: impersonation of government agencies, spoofed caller ID, fake warrants sent by text and undisclosed AI voices used to obtain money. High-volume or high-loss schemes would become heightened felonies with mandatory prison time, and possessing or importing phone farms or SIM farms would itself be a felony.

The parts that touch marketers more directly:

  • Florida’s telemarketing consent law would be tightened.
  • STOP requests would have to be honored “within days instead of weeks.”
  • Carriers would have to authenticate caller ID, respond to traceback requests and stop carrying a named unlawful campaign after written notice.
  • Selling stolen lists used to target Florida numbers would be a separate civil violation.
  • The Department of Legal Affairs would gain independent authority to investigate and to seek injunctions, restitution and civil penalties.

According to Spectrum News, Uthmeier said his statewide prosecution team recovered “about $10 million for victims” over the past year. He also said he expects an AI legislative package “this year.” No bill number, sponsor or session timeline had been published as of late September.

The growth implications

Opt-out speed becomes a deliverability issue. Today, Florida’s FTSA ties a text-message damages claim to a consumer replying STOP and the sender texting again more than 15 days later, according to TCPAWorld’s analysis of Fla. Stat. 501.059(10)(c). The federal TCPA standard is a reasonable time, not exceeding ten business days. If Florida moves to “days,” every connected tool, from your ESP and SMS platform to your CRM, your dialer and any agency partners, has to share suppression data quickly.

Consent sources will get more scrutiny. A tighter consent law plus a civil violation for selling stolen lists puts pressure on third-party lead buying. Growth teams that rely on aggregators should be ready to show exactly where and how each Florida contact opted in.

Campaign continuity risk. Letting the state direct carriers to cut off a named campaign is aimed at scammers, but TCPAWorld notes that the response deadline and any process to challenge a mistaken notice are not yet known. For a brand running a big seasonal push, an erroneous cutoff could be costly.

Prep checklist for marketing teams

  • Map every system that can send a message to a Florida number and measure STOP-to-suppression time.
  • Document consent capture for each lead source, including screenshots, timestamps and language.
  • Keep sender IDs registered and authenticated with your carriers.
  • Assign someone to track the bill when it is filed.

Protect your pipeline from serial plaintiffs

Stricter state rules tend to give plaintiffs new theories, and Florida’s FTSA already carries a private right of action. Smart list hygiene is a growth lever as well as a legal one. TCPALitigatorList.com helps marketing and sales teams screen contacts against known TCPA litigators before launching a campaign, so a small number of high-risk contacts don’t turn a profitable channel into a legal expense.

The takeaway

Florida’s proposal is still early, and the final bill could look quite different. But the direction of travel is faster opt-outs, stricter consent and more state enforcement power. Growth teams that operationalize those principles now will keep their Florida channels open whatever the legislature passes.

Sources

Do-Not-Call Lawsuits Are Shrinking in Some Courts. Here’s How Growth Teams Should Read It.

For growth teams that live on outbound calls and SMS, the TCPA’s do-not-call rules have long been one of the most expensive line items on the risk register. Two federal court decisions handed down in the last week of September 2026 suggest that, in at least some courtrooms, that line item is shrinking. Whether it shrinks for your program depends on where your audience lives and how you run your campaigns.

The two rulings

Internicola v. MortgagePros, LLC (M.D. Fla., Sept. 24, 2026). A federal court in Florida held that the TCPA does not give consumers a private right of action for claims based on the National Do-Not-Call Registry. As reported by TCPAWorld, the court read the statute’s private-right provision, Section 227(c)(5), as covering only regulations the FCC prescribed within the nine-month window Congress set in 1991, which closed on September 20, 1992. The national registry did not exist until 2003. The court also held that texts are not “calls” under the provision.

Koeller v. Ox AppSec Security, Inc. (E.D. Mo., Sept. 30, 2026). A Missouri federal court dismissed DNC claims because, in its view, the TCPA’s do-not-call protections for “residential” subscribers do not reach cellphones. Citing Loper Bright and McLaughlin, the court refused to defer to the FCC’s 2003 interpretation that extended residential protection to cell numbers.

Why this matters for go-to-market

DNC claims are the bread and butter of a lot of TCPA filings because they are easy to plead: a number on the registry, two or more marketing contacts in twelve months, and a demand letter follows. If courts keep narrowing that pathway, the economics of plaintiff-side litigation change, and so does the risk profile of high-volume outbound.

But a GTM leader should read these cases the way they read a single A/B test: interesting, directional, not yet conclusive.

  • Geography is now a variable. TCPAWorld reported on October 5 that California federal courts are still treating SMS as calls for DNC purposes. A text program that is low-risk in one district may be high-risk in another.
  • The rulings are fragile. The Internicola plaintiff has filed a motion for reconsideration, and neither case is an appellate decision.
  • Other claims fill the gap. The cases did not touch Section 227(b) robocall and autodialer claims, and state laws such as Florida’s FTSA carry their own private rights of action.

How to adjust your playbook

Look closely at the Internicola facts. The consumer had engaged with the company about a refinance, then withdrew consent on July 1, 2025, and allegedly received just over a dozen calls and texts in the following ten days. That is not a DNC-registry problem at its core. It is a lifecycle problem: a lead who said stop kept getting touched by automated cadences.

For growth teams, that points to three practical moves:

  • Wire opt-outs directly into your sequencing tools. A stop request in one channel should pause every channel immediately.
  • Keep registry scrubbing in place. It is cheap insurance against jurisdictions that do not follow these rulings.
  • Segment by risk. Know which states and area codes your lists concentrate in, and match your cadence intensity to the legal environment.

Know your audience before you reach out

Every growth marketer knows that list quality drives results. In outbound, list quality also drives legal exposure. A small group of repeat plaintiffs generates an outsized share of TCPA lawsuits, and they are adept at shifting legal theories when courts close one door. TCPALitigatorList.com gives sales and marketing teams a way to screen lists against known TCPA litigators before a campaign launches, which removes some of the highest-risk contacts without slowing down the pipeline.

The takeaway

Late September brought real wins for businesses defending DNC claims, and they reflect a broader trend of courts reading the TCPA strictly after Loper Bright. Still, the smartest growth teams will bank the good news without changing their fundamentals: clean consent, fast opt-outs and smarter list hygiene remain the best growth hedge against litigation.

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