Tuesday, March 16, 2021
If you are a defendant in a TCPA class action and get hit with a second similar class action, don’t forget the often over-looked first-to-file doctrine. Just last week, a federal court dismissed (without prejudice) a TCPA class action in favor of an earlier-filed class action under the first-to-file doctrine.
See Winters v. Quicken Loans, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47267 (D. Ariz. March 12, 2021).
The first-to-file doctrine is a doctrine of federal comity that permits a district court to decline jurisdiction when a complaint involving the same parties and same issues is filed in another district. The doctrine is discretionary, although as the Court noted, it “should not be disregarded lightly.” The Court considers three straightforward threshold factors: (1) chronology of the lawsuits; (2) similarity of the issues; and (3) similarity of the parties. As to the second and third factors, there need not be complete overlap of issues an