Liberty Mutual Had a Do Not Call Policy. It Could Not Prove the Training

What happened in Ward v. Liberty Mutual#

Liberty Mutual bought 24,587 leads from All Web Leads between 17 March and 12 June 2020. In the same period it made or sent 56,517 calls and texts to 7,092 members of the Do Not Call class.

Adam Ward sued, and the court certified a Do Not Call class on 12 June 2026. Liberty Mutual conceded the elements of liability and argued two defenses: the leads consented, and its program earned the safe harbor.

Judge Brian Murphy denied both sides summary judgment on 1 October 2026 (No. 1:24-cv-10526, Dkt. 113, read 11 Oct 2026). Consent and the safe harbor now turn on disputed facts.

• Consent stalled because Ward denies visiting the lead form, and the parties dispute what that website showed and whether it was live.
• The safe harbor stalled for a different reason: the record did not prove what Liberty Mutual said its program contained.

The five things the safe harbor makes you prove#

Section 227(c)(5) makes it an affirmative defense that you set up, with due care, reasonable practices to prevent Do Not Call violations. The FCC spelled out what that means in 47 CFR 64.1200(c)(2)(i).

You must first show the violation was an error. Then you must show that, as routine business practice, you meet all five standards below (eCFR text, read 11 Oct 2026).

Where Liberty Mutual's record fell short#

Liberty Mutual said it keeps written policies on calls and texts. It filed one: a Customer Complaint Handling Policy describing how to remove someone from call, email and mail lists.

The court found that document did not cover consent before marketing, dialer limits or consent record keeping, all of which Liberty Mutual said its policies addressed.

Training failed on two counts. A senior employee's declaration gave only a cursory mention of training, and the manuals Liberty Mutual cited were never put in the record.

• The court quoted the rule: you must train your personnel and any entity assisting in your compliance (64.1200(c)(2)(i)(B)).
• Liberty Mutual described its relationship with Jornaya, its consent-capture vendor, but not how its training or policy reached the contractors it works with.
• A footnote limits the defense to the Do Not Call claim under 227(c)(5). It does nothing for a 227(b) prerecorded-voice claim in the same suit.

What a winning file looked like in Van Elzen#

David Van Elzen sued American Home Shield over four marketing texts to a number on the Registry. He denied filling out the web form AHS relied on, so consent could not be decided on paper.

AHS won anyway. Judge William Griesbach granted summary judgment on 21 April 2026 on the safe harbor alone (No. 1:24-cv-01206, Dkt. 47, read 11 Oct 2026). The opinion lists what AHS filed.

• A written Telemarketing Do-Not-Call Policy, applying to its employees, subsidiary employees and any company it contracts with for teleservices.
• A Training Manual, which AHS said provides rigorous training for all telemarketing personnel, filed with its training exhibits.
• An internal do-not-call list for people who opt out, run through software built to avoid mistakes.
• Subscriptions to the federal and state registries, with proof it bought National Registry access from July 2024 through July 2025.
• A declaration that AHS does not sell, rent, lease, buy or use the Registry for any improper purpose.

Does any of this reach a B2B team texting prospects?#

Sometimes. The Registry protects residential subscribers, and courts now split on whether a cell phone counts as one and whether a text counts as a call under 227(c).

TCPAWorld's 9 Oct 2026 post reports that most courts now say texts are not calls for Do Not Call claims, while district courts in the 3rd, 5th and 9th Circuits let those claims proceed.

A rep texting a founder's personal cell can land in the part of the map where the claim survives. The safe harbor is what is left when one bought list or one stale opt-out slips through.

The internal list rule asks for the same paperwork#

The FCC's rule 47 CFR 64.1200(d) governs your own do-not-call list for telemarketing to residential subscribers. Two of its minimum standards, a written policy and trained staff, parallel the safe harbor.

You need a written policy available on demand. Anyone engaged in any aspect of telemarketing must be informed and trained in the existence and use of the list.

• Record a stop request when it is made and honor it within a reasonable time, never more than 10 business days.
• Keep honoring it for 5 years, and if a vendor holds the list, the seller is still liable for misses.
• The full record-keeping side, including who stores the opt-out, is at /blog/who-keeps-your-opt-out-record.

Build the training record before you need it#

Ward's lesson is narrow and expensive: a claim about your program in a brief is not evidence. A dated document a witness can authenticate is.

Most outbound teams train reps on opt-outs once, on a call, and keep nothing. Fix that in an afternoon.

• Write a one-page policy naming the Registry, your internal list, your consent standard and everyone it covers: reps, SDR agencies, lead vendors.
• Run a 20-minute session for every rep who texts. Save the slides, the date and the attendee list, and collect a signed acknowledgment.
• Repeat it at onboarding and on a fixed cadence, so training reads as routine business practice, the rule's own words.
• Put training and policy flow-down terms in every lead vendor and agency contract, and keep their confirmation on file.
• Keep registry scrub logs and proof of your own registry purchase, the evidence that settled the last element in Van Elzen.

Where Blue Reacher sits in this#

Blue Reacher sends over iMessage, so no A2P registration is required. That is a carrier-registration fact, and it changes nothing about consent law or the do-not-call rules.

Messages send from your CRM, so the reply and the opt-out land on the same contact record your suppression list already reads from.

We are a vendor in this category. Nothing here is legal advice, and every citation is dated so your counsel can check it.

• Pacing is published: no total daily message cap, replies are never metered, and new conversations pace at 50 opted-in or 30 cold new contacts per line per day.
• Whether a text is a call in your circuit is mapped at /blog/are-texts-calls-tcpa-dnc-map, and the cell phone question at /blog/cell-phone-residential-subscriber-dnc-rulings.

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