MINNESOTA MAN ENJOINED FROM PERPETRATING DO-NOT-CALL SCHEME
A federal district court has ordered a Minnesota man to stop attempting to extract monetary settlements by threatening to sue for do-not-call violations. This was the decision in the recent Minnesota case of Re/Max Ideal Properties, Inc. v. Swanberg (Civil No. 06-4843).

Ryan Swanberg of Minnesota has targeted California REALTORS® and other businesses for monetary settlements based upon a strained interpretation of the federal do-not-call rules. In this scheme, Mr. Swanberg contacts a real estate brokerage asking to be placed on its do-not-call list and for a copy of its written do-not-call policy, even though the brokerage has never contacted him before. If he does not receive the policy in five days, he threatens to sue the brokerage for violating the do-not-call rules, but offers to settle the matter for about $5,000.

After being targeted by Mr. Swanberg, Re/Max Ideal Properties, Inc. of Oregon filed a lawsuit seeking, among other things, for the court to declare that Mr. Swanberg had no private right of action under the do-not-call rules, and to permanently enjoin him from demanding money in this manner. The court granted this relief through a default judgment entered against Mr. Swanberg in March 2007.

Issuance of this injunction is no guarantee that Mr. Swanberg will stop targeting REALTORS®. To help REALTORS® comply with the do-not-call rules, C.A.R. has a legal article entitled Do-Not-Call, Do-Not-Fax, Do-Not-Email Laws Affecting REALTORS®, which includes a sample policy for maintaining a company-specific do-not-call list. Although the federal do-not-call rules do not specifically require delivery of a written do-not-call policy within five days as Mr. Swanberg has demanded, a prudent broker should, upon anyone's request, provide a copy of its written policy within a reasonable time.

C.A.R.'s Legal Department provides REALTORS® with many other legal articles covering a wide range of topics of interest. Some of our new or newly revised legal articles available through C.A.R. Online at http://qa.car.org are as follows:

- Contract Law and Real Estate Transactions.  
- Exemptions form the Transfer Disclosure Statement (TDS and MHTDS) Law.

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