Changes to Florida’s Telemarketing Statutes Effective July 1, 2021

Expired

Program Number

31229

Program Date

2021-09-03

CLE Credits

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed into law a bill enacting substantial changes to the Florida Telemarketing Act. These changes went into effect on July 1, 2021. **The big deal is that the amendments include important changes to allow a private cause of action to be brought under the Florida Do Not Call Act. We expect that these changes will lead to an increase in court filings as plaintiffs will be able to bring private causes of action in Florida alleging violations of the state’s telemarketing statutes.

Carlton Fields Miami shareholders Aaron Weiss and Charles Throckmorton lead the firm’s “Robocall Defense” practice at Carlton Fields. If your company is considering any phone or text-based marketing in Florida, this presentation may be of particular interest.

Key Parts of the Amended Florida Act

The most significant change is that there is now an explicit private right of action under the Florida law. It is similar to the TCPA and allows aggrieved parties to recover actual damages or $500, whichever is greater, or treble damages if the violation is willful or knowing. The Florida statute did not previously include an explicit private right of action.

The amendment also added provisions that restrict a person from making telephonic sales calls if such call “involves an automated system for the selection or dialing of telephone numbers or the playing of a recorded message when a connection is completed” without the prior express written consent of the called party. Most of the anticipated litigation will likely relate to this provision. In their recent decision in Facebook v. Duguid, the Supreme Court dealt with specific statutory language, which defined “automatic telephone dialing system” as “equipment which has the capacity…to store or produce numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator, and to dial such numbers.” Unlike the TCPA—the amended Florida statute does not have a statutory definition that limits its reach to technology that has the capacity to randomly or sequentially generate a number to be called.
A rebuttable presumption was also created stating that any sales call made to any area code in Florida is made to a Florida resident or a person in the state at the time of the call.