Short answer: Three federal appeals decisions from 2026 matter to anyone who buys leads or pays others to call them. In Hossfeld v. Allstate (7th Cir., June 24) the court held that an insurer was not liable for calls placed by a sub-vendor two layers below its agents, and that acting quickly on complaints defeats ratification. In Moore v. Club Exploria (7th Cir., Aug. 18) a seller lost the arbitration clauses on the opt-in sites its leads came from because it litigated for four years before invoking them. In Coffey v. Fast Easy Offer (9th Cir., June 4) a text that never named a product was still plausibly a telephone solicitation because of why it was sent.
All three turn on records: who called on whose behalf, what the consumer agreed to, and why the message was sent.
Hossfeld v. Allstate: is a lead buyer liable for a sub-vendor’s calls?
Case: Hossfeld v. Allstate Insurance Co., Nos. 25-1518 & 25-1672 (7th Cir. June 24, 2026), opinion by Judge St. Eve.
Facts. Two Allstate agents hired a telemarketer, Transfer Kings, under Allstate’s rules for “Non-Contracted Telemarketers.” Transfer Kings subcontracted the calling to Atlantic Telemarketing Center. Atlantic bought a lead list from KP Leads, which “represented that all the phone numbers on the leads list belonged to people who had consented to receiving phone calls.” Hossfeld’s number was on the list, attached to the names “Michael Johnson” and “Michael Bradley.” He had previously asked Allstate not to call him. Atlantic called him twelve times.
Holding. The court reversed a judgment against Allstate and directed judgment in Allstate’s favor. Agency law requires authority at each step: Allstate had authorized its agents to use telemarketers, but nothing showed it authorized those telemarketers to hand the work to further subcontractors. The court put it this way:
“Adopting Hossfeld’s position would allow for seemingly infinite levels of subagency—and an accompanying unending chain of vicarious liability—all without any hint of Allstate’s assent.”
Ratification. Hossfeld argued Allstate ratified the calls by failing to act. The court disagreed because Allstate “promptly traced the problematic calls to Transfer Kings and immediately began a thorough investigation into the calls and the source of the leads,” and within a few months barred its agents from using Transfer Kings or Atlantic. “No reasonable jury could construe Allstate’s response as a total failure to act tantamount to ratification.”
Two more holdings worth knowing. The court affirmed denial of class certification because Hossfeld identified only thirty-three numbers and made no argument that joining them was impracticable. It also rejected the district court’s view that a “willful” TCPA violation only needs to be “volitional,” applying instead the standard of conduct that creates “an unjustifiably high risk of harm that is either known or so obvious that it should be known.” That raises the bar for treble damages in the Seventh Circuit.
What it means for lead buyers. Hossfeld is a defense win, but read the facts. The lead seller’s consent claim was false: the number belonged to someone other than the named consumers. Allstate won on agency law and on its response, not because the consent was good. A buyer that cannot show what consent existed, and that did nothing when complaints arrived, would be in a much worse position. Two practical points:
- Put sub-vendor restrictions in writing, and require that every call be traceable to the vendor and lead source that produced it.
- When a complaint arrives, investigate, document what you did, and cut off bad sources. That record is what defeated ratification here.
Moore v. Club Exploria: are arbitration clauses on opt-in sites enough?
Case: Moore v. Club Exploria, LLC, No. 25-2721 (7th Cir. Aug. 18, 2026), opinion by Chief Judge Brennan.
Facts. Club Exploria hired third-party vendors in 2018 to promote a Florida resort. The vendors bought leads “generated through various ‘opt-in’ websites” and placed prerecorded calls that reached tens of thousands of people. Moore sued in April 2019. For four years Exploria litigated: pleadings, class discovery, merits motions, opposing class certification. Only after the class was certified did it try to compel arbitration under clauses on the opt-in sites.
Holding. The court affirmed that Exploria had waived arbitration: “we hold that a party’s pre-certification conduct may support an inference that it waived its right to compel arbitration of putative class members’ claims.”
What it means. Arbitration language on a lead form protects you only if you can find it and invoke it early. That requires knowing, for each lead, which site the consumer used and what terms appeared there, on the day the lawsuit arrives, not years later.
Coffey v. Fast Easy Offer: when is a text a telephone solicitation?
Case: Coffey v. Fast Easy Offer, LLC, No. 25-4066 (9th Cir. June 4, 2026), opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.
Facts. Coffey alleged that in fall 2024 she received at least six calls and two texts from a Fast Easy Offer employee, including “Have you given up on selling your property?”, and sued under the Do-Not-Call rules, which apply only to telephone solicitations. The defendants, including Keller Williams entities, argued the messages were not solicitations because they offered nothing for sale.
Holding. The court reversed dismissal. The TCPA defines a telephone solicitation as “the initiation of a telephone call or message for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services.” The court read that literally:
“The ‘purpose’ at issue is not, on a plain read, the purpose of the call or message, but instead of the ‘initiation’ of that call or message.”
Following its earlier decision in Chesbro v. Best Buy, the court held that a message does not have to mention a product to be a solicitation if the reason for sending it was to generate business.
What it means. “Soft-touch” outreach that asks a question instead of making an offer is still telemarketing if it exists to produce leads. It needs the same consent, and the same Do-Not-Call scrubbing, as a direct pitch. (Note that in the Seventh Circuit, after Steidinger, text-only Do-Not-Call claims cannot be brought privately at all. See Are Text Messages “Calls” Under the TCPA’s Do-Not-Call Rules?)
What should lead buyers change after these three cases?
- Trace every call to a lead source. Hossfeld turned on who authorized whom. Keep the vendor, sub-vendor and lead source for each call.
- Verify consent before you call. The KP Leads list claimed consent for a number that did not belong to the named consumer. A consent certificate tied to the session in which the consumer typed their own number, checked before dialing, would have caught it.
- Keep the opt-in page and its terms with each lead. Moore shows that terms you cannot produce quickly are terms you may lose.
- Treat lead-generating outreach as telemarketing. Coffey looks at why a message was sent, not what it says.
- Document your response to complaints. Investigating and cutting off a source is evidence against ratification.
eConsent’s Partner Certificates let a lead seller share the signed consent record, including the page and disclosure the consumer saw, with the buyer, and the Verification API lets a buyer check that record before dialing.
Sources
- Hossfeld v. Allstate Insurance Co., Nos. 25-1518 & 25-1672 (7th Cir. June 24, 2026): ca7.uscourts.gov
- Moore v. Club Exploria, LLC, No. 25-2721 (7th Cir. Aug. 18, 2026): ca7.uscourts.gov
- Coffey v. Fast Easy Offer, LLC, No. 25-4066 (9th Cir. June 4, 2026): ca9.uscourts.gov
- 47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(4): law.cornell.edu
This article is general information, not legal advice. Talk to TCPA counsel about your own program.