A Texas resident filed a lawsuit against Lockhart, Morris & Montgomery Inc., a Texas-based collection agency, after he received several automated voicemail messages from an employee that did not disclose the messages were an attempt to collect a debt.
According to allegations in the suit filed by James Jones last week in the Easter District of Texas, Beaumont Division, the agency on more than one occasion used an automatic telephone dialing system to make a call to Jones' cell phone and left a voicemail message. Jones states the employee did not disclose in the voicemail message that it was a debt collector.
The defendants are accused of violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Texas Debt Collection Practices Act, the Texas Business and Commerce Code and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by failing to disclose in any communication that it is attempting to collect a debt.
The plaintiff is asking the court to issue an injunction prohibiting the defendants from continuing its "violative behaviors" and for an award of statutory damages, actual damages, three times actual damages, interest, attorney's fees and court costs.
Jones is represented by Dennis R. Kurz of Weisberg & Meyers in Houston. A jury trial is requested.
