A federal appeals court ruled Allstate was not liable for twelve unwanted telemarketing calls made by a subcontractor it never hired or knew about.
In a June 24, 2026 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed a lower-court ruling that had held Allstate Insurance Company vicariously liable under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), the federal law requiring companies to honor a consumer's do-not-call request.
The case is a useful map for any insurer that markets through outside parties. A subcontractor placed twelve calls to the plaintiff between November 2020 and February 2021, pitching Allstate auto insurance - even though Allstate had added his number to its internal do-not-call list on July 10, 2020, about five months earlier.
The calls came through a chain of intermediaries. Two Allstate agents hired a telemarketing firm in 2020. That firm then subcontracted the work to another company without telling the agents. According to the court, neither Allstate nor its agents knew the subcontractor "existed and was marketing Allstate insurance" until after the lawsuit was filed.
The district court had reasoned that the subcontractor's conduct flowed up the chain to Allstate, found the violations willful, and awarded treble damages. The Seventh Circuit saw it differently. Liability needs authority at every link, and Allstate's contracts told its agents - not the telemarketing firm - to ensure any "external provider[s]" followed the law. Because Allstate never dealt with that firm before the calls, or even knew it existed, the firm had no power to bring in the subcontractor on Allstate's behalf.
Two fallback arguments failed too. The plaintiff had argued the callers said they were acting for Allstate, but the court was unmoved: only the insurer's own words or conduct - not a caller's say-so - can create that kind of authority. He also admitted he was only pretending to be interested and never bought a policy, so he could not show he relied on anything Allstate did. And Allstate, rather than ignoring the problem, traced the calls, investigated, and barred its agents from working with either contractor.
On damages, the court raised the bar. A merely "volitional" act does not trigger treble damages; willfulness under the TCPA requires reckless or knowing conduct. The court noted it had not previously defined "willful" under the TCPA.
The plaintiff also lost his bid to represent a class. He had identified just thirty-three phone numbers tied to the campaign - below the roughly forty-member benchmark courts use to judge whether a class is large enough - and the appeals court upheld the denial of class certification.
The court sent the case back with instructions to enter judgment for Allstate.
