For anyone wondering what the cost of TCPA class action defense looks like when you retain #biglaw, buckle up because I have a fantastic story for you.
A while back a guy named Brian Trenz sued Volkswagen in a TCPA class action.
The suit apparently arose out of the actions of some companies called On-Line Administrators, Inc. dba Peak Performance Marketing Solutions, On-Line Administrators, LLC, and Affinitiv, Inc–at least they ended up owing VW indemnity, but we will get to that.
So VW goes off and hires two large firms to defend it. Faegre and Baker Hostetler.
Now if you’re a TCPAWorld reader you already know that was a mistake. But how big of a mistake? Let’s find out.
Well after litigating the case for years the big law firms finally got the case settled for $275,000.00 on an individual basis.
Eesh.
So many opinions on that.
But it gets so much worse.
These two lovely law firms apparently billed Volkswagen–wait or it– $2,245,305.62 in attorneys fees to defend the suit.
Over $2.2MM to defend a TCPA class action suit folks.
Now, as mentioned, the Peak defendants were apparently on the hook for indemnity. So after the case settled–and all those fees were paid to defend the suit– VW turned around and hired more lawyers to sue Peak to recover the $2.2MM.
Here’s where things get REALLY interesting.
In order to recover its fees, the Defendant needed to demonstrate the demanded fees were reasonable.
The Peak defendants hired an expert to look at the #biglaw billing entries and–surprise surprise– the expert found the billing to be wildly inefficient, duplicative, and just flat unreasonable.
Yeah, nobody surprised there.
Nonetheless the court determined the $2MM+ charged by #biglaw was actually mostly reasonable!
In Volkswagen Group v. On-Line Administrators 2025 WL 1503120 (C.D. Cal May 27, 2025) the court essentially determined paying two law firms over $2MM in fees is actually pretty smart considering that the TCPA class action had over $2BB in potential liability.
The Court’s reasoning was essentially the amount #biglaw spent on the stuff it did was not too high– but the Court (and Peak’s expert) missed that the stuff it did SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN DONE had the case been litigated properly.
Ironically, therefore, Peak screwed up by retaining an expert to review the BILLING practices of #biglaw as opposed to the LITIGTION practices.
For instance, had the case been competently handled in my view it would never have been certified. And a million in fees could have been avoided easily. But… whatever.
The Court did find some of #biglaws billing practice to be unacceptable, but only trimmed the fees by a moderate ~7%. So Volkswagen was entitled to recover just over $2MM in fees although it had to take a bit of a haircut.
In terms of the settlement itself, the Court determined “Volkswagen’s $275,000 settlement was reasonable and is recoverable in full.”
Think about that.
A guy gets a few phone calls and settles his case INDIVIDUALLY for $275,000.00 because the defendant hired #biglaw.
THIS is why TCPA class actions have doubled year-over-year. THIS is why TCPA class actions are overrunning our courts. THIS is why small businesses are getting hit with shake down lawsuits daily.
Get sued in a TCPA class action– thank #biglaw.
By comparison, Troutman Amin, LLP handles multi-billion dollar exposure TCPA class litigation in federal court EVERY SINGLE DAY. While I cannot reveal settlement amounts it is public record that we do CLASS settlements in the $275,000.00 range– not individual settlements.
Our results CRUSH those like happen here and we NEVER spend millions to defend a single TCPA suit. Absolutely nuts.
If you want to waste millions in fees and LOSE, by all means hire #biglaw.
If you want to get better results for way less money, hire the guys who actually know what the hell they’re doing.
But at the end of the day Volkswagen won, sort of.
Sure it had to eat millions of dollars in fees and have its settlement publicly disclosed but now it has spent some unknown amount of additional money to obtain a judgment against the Peak defendants who will now probably try to negotiate the settlement down or just declare bankruptcy and not pay it.
And that leads to the ultimate take aways here:
- Be INCREDIBLY careful with who you work with for outbound calling or lead generation. Just because someone gives you an indemnity agreement does not mean it is worth the paper it is printed on– and even if it is you may still have to defend resulting TCPA lawsuit all the way to judgment.
- Be INCREDIBLY careful about who you retain to defend you in TCPA class litigation. This is literally a multi-million dollar decision and it DOES matter. Many people don’t know that #biglaw attorneys will try to sell you to work with their partners while taking secret kick backs they don’t tell you about. Totally unethical but it happens all the time.
- The exposure in these cases is wild. And companies will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle these suits individually just to get out from under #biglaw’s bills. This, of course, just incentivizes more lawsuits. But that’s the way it goes.