Status Conference Set in Verizon’s Dispute With its Debt Collector

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff for Southern New York scheduled a telephone status conference for Dec. 16 at 11:15 a.m. EST in Verizon’s court battle with its debt collection agency, CBE Customer Solutions, said an order he signed Friday (docket 1:22-cv-08703). Verizon sued CBE to recover $6.1 million in damages and court costs associated with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act class-action settlement under an April 2014 master services agreement requiring that CBE indemnify Verizon for fees and costs that the carrier incurs “in defending any claims arising out of CBE’s services” (see 2210140026). Verizon said its TCPA problems began after a CBE employee “negligently failed” to remove consumer Robin Breda from one of Verizon’s call lists. Breda began getting inundated with debt-collection calls from Verizon’s automated “voice response” system even though she was not a Verizon customer. CBE is countersuing the carrier, alleging any negligence that mushroomed into a TCPA class-action settlement was of Verizon’s doing (see 2211210034). Rakoff’s order requires that Verizon and CBE confer on a joint status report for submission at least a week before the conference summarizing their agreements or disagreements “regarding planning of discovery.”