Federal Court Approves $2.5 Million TCPA Settlement Against Student Loan Servicer

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia recently approved a $2.5 million settlement in a class action alleging a student loan servicer subjected loan borrowers’ references to unsolicited calls to their cellular phones.  The court also approved $833,333 in attorneys’ fees and expenses. 

This settlement stemmed from a class action suit against a student loan servicer, which accused the servicer of violating the TCPA by using an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) to call the cellular phones of the borrowers’ references without their express consent.  The class consisted of approximately 300,000 members.  While the court preliminarily approved the $2.5 million settlement amount in July 2018, the final approval included $833,333 in attorneys’ fees and another $24,379 in costs and expenses to the class counsel.  Pursuant to the terms of the settlement, the attorneys’ fees and additional costs and expenses will be deducted from the $2.5 million sum before the remainder is made available for distribution to the class.