So I am no fan of Mark Dobronski, but I am a fan of a good story.
Here’s one.
In Dobronski v. 1-800-Law-Firm, 2025 WL 1386024 (E.D. Mich April 17, 2025) the Court denied a series of motions filed by the Defense seeking to dismiss a TCPA suit filed by Dobronski.
The defendant went to remarkable lengths to attack the case, and while I generally respect the hustle, the arguments here were just not strong.
Starting with the worst argument I have seen in a while, the Defendant accused Dobronski of “deliberate misconduct” for waiting over a year to file his lawsuit, “knowing that industry practice limits third-party vendors’ retention of SMS (Short Message Service) data to one year” and “effectively ensuring that [LAWFIRM] would be unable to access records to defend itself.”
What the hell?
I have not looked at the docket to confirm that argument was actually made but if it was then it is the Defendant who has engaged in “deliberate misconduct.”
Who in the world deletes their records after only one year?
I mean, call recordings sure– those things take up a lot of space– but just deleting all of your records every year sounds like a really bad idea. (Especially since the FTC requires telemarketers to keep records for five years and the FCC requires DNC lists to be maintained basically forever now.)
Unsurprisingly the Court rejected that argument but that was just the start. The Court also rejected the following arguments:
- Defendant claims Dobronski filled out a lead form, but since Defendant produced no evidence of the form–and as Dobronski denied filling it out– this argument was rejected;
- Defendant argued Dobronski’s failure to “opt out” of their messages somehow meant it had consent to text him– but that’s not how it works. TCPA consent must be obtained before messages are sent;
- Defendant argued it had an established business relationship but there was no evidence presented to that effect and Dobronski denied it regardless (the guy, obviously, doesn’t need lawyers);
- Defendant argued it is not a telemarketer so the DNC rules do not apply to it but since the messages it sent were, you know, marketing the Court rejected this argument;
- Defendant argued the DNC does not apply to calls made for “political, charitable, debt collection, informational, and survey purposes” and that’s true– but Defendant didn’t call for those reasons so this point was utterly frivolous;
- Defendant argued Dobronski provided no evidence his number was on the DNC list– but since Dobronski actually did provide a sworn statement to that effect (which would be something called evidence) the Court rejected this argument as well;
- Defendant claims Dobronski engaged in an abuse of process by serving discovery demands seeking other businesses to sue– but merely seeking out the names of companies involved in a TCPA violation is plainly within the scope of discovery;
- Defendant sought to stay proceedings in the case but the Court found there was no reason to do so;
- Defendant also filed a Rule 11 motion but apparently failed to demonstrate by certification that it was served 21 days before it was filed as the rule requires– insane;
- Defendant argued “publicly available records” demonstrate Dobronski files meritless cases but Defendant did not produce those records or identify any meritless cases so… yeah;
- Defendant also (ironically at this point) claimed Dobronski should be sanctioned because his positions were “unsupported by evidence or legal precedent” although it looks like Defendant should remove the board from its own eye, and all that;
- Last Defendant suggested Dobronski had needlessly “multiple the proceedings” with his behavior, but give that it was Defendant who made 13 frivolous or borderline frivolous arguments here the Court rather immediately rejected the motion for sanctions on that basis.
So yeah.
Just absurd how bad some of these arguments are, and while I do respect grit and hustle in the practice of law I do not respect wasting a court’s time. And that’s what appears to have happened here.