While digging through Discover Financial Services’ (DFS) 10-K yesterday, we noticed an interesting disclosure about a class action lawsuit filed against the company last November in federal court  in California’s Northern District. It seems that one of Discover’s card holders had a beef against the company because it allegedly

“…contacted him, and members of the class he seeks to represent, on their cellular telephones without their express consent in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (‘TCPA’).”

However effective they might be, we’ve never met anyone who actually liked getting telemarketing calls. And sales calls to your cell phone are particularly annoying, especially because most of us wind up paying for incoming calls one way or another.

In this case, the plaintiff who filed the suit is seeking statutory damages for alleged negligent and willful violations of the TCPA, attorneys’ fees, costs and injunctive relief, which could cost $500 for each violation and $1,500 if it’s a “willful violation.” Discover said it can’t currently predict how the case might turn out, but it “…will seek to vigorously defend against all claims asserted by the plaintiff.”

Never ones to pass up the opportunity to do a little cyber-snorkeling in the Code of Federal Regulations, we found the relevant rules here, in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. There are indeed restrictions that limit the circumstances in which a party can make a sales or marketing call to a cell phone user, but there are also some exceptions that would possibly get the company off the hook (if the consumer had previously given his consent to be called or if the call had an emergency purpose).

It turns out that this isn’t the first time that Discover has litigated this type of class action lawsuit. Earlier in 2011, the company settled a similar case that had been filed in federal court in the Southern District of California, according to a 10-Q filed last July.

Neither filing goes into the details of the respective lawsuits, so there are a lot of possibilities here. It could be that the underlying facts of the case are similar, or they might be very different. The fact that the first case was settled might have inspired a second plaintiff/attorney duo to file their own lawsuit. And – as far as Discover is concerned, as a company with a $14.79 billion market cap – this could be the metaphorical equivalent of swatting mosquitoes at a picnic. As soon as it swats one down, another one comes circling.

We wondered, though: What other companies are dealing with class action lawsuits filed under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act? We found some other examples from the past few months’ filings, including:

Encore Capital Group, Inc. (ECPG), which got zapped with a couple of class actions filed in late 2010 in federal court in California’s Southern District. Encore Capital lost its bid to get the cases dismissed or stayed. Several months later, two more class action cases were filed in the Northern District of Illinois; but, according to the most recent 10-Q, Encore Capital won its motion to transfer the Illinois cases and consolidate them with the two already pending in California.

Career Education Corp. (CECO), a for-profit education company, has a couple of cases pending in federal court in the Northern District of Illinois, according to the company’s most recent 10-Q. Both of those cases alleged that the plaintiffs received unauthorized text message advertisements from the company, in violation of the TCPA. As of last fall, the parties were trying to negotiate settlements, but some issues remained “unresolved.”

Nelnet, Inc. (NNI), a student-loan servicing company, is defending a case filed against a subsidiary in federal court in New Jersey; that lawsuit, filed on behalf of a putative class, alleged that the company sent unauthorized advertising faxes, some of which were supposedly sent “willfully.” According to the most recent 10-Q, the complaint claims that the company “…sent putative class members more than 10,000 faxes that violated the TCPA, amounting to more than $5 million in statutory penalty damages and more than $15 million if trebled for willful violations.”

There are also several cases pending against smaller companies, but there aren’t so many that we would classify this as the cause of action du jour. Nevertheless, we’ll keep an eye on this topic and let you know if that changes.

Until then, if you get a call on your cell from a telemarketer, it may be comforting to know that you have options.

Image source: Set of touchscreen smartphones, via Shutterstock

Unemployment is still high, at 8.5%, and underemployment is rife: Plenty of people are working part-time when they’d rather have full-time jobs.

Then there are the part-time jobs pretty much anyone would love to have: corporate directorships. Earlier this month, Michelle footnoted how Google (GOOG) seems to have decided to double the value of the one-time stock grant for new directors, to $1 million, from $500,000. But in recent weeks, some other director pay arrangements have also caught our eye.

Like a lot of companies, WGL Holdings, a Washington, D.C.-area natural gas supplier, lets directors defer some of their pay, and promises to pay them interest on the deferrals. But it turns out that WGL goes further, according to the proxy it filed on Friday, guaranteeing its director a minimum of 8% interest, or, if it’s higher, the “weekly average yield to maturity for 10-year U.S. Government fixed interest rate securities issued at the time of the deferral…” For one director (Melvyn J. Estrin), that meant $89,932 in interest gains in fiscal 2011, or just over a third of his total compensation, and more than his $75,000 in stock awards for the year. It meant $48,309 for James F. Lafond, or just under a quarter of his total pay, and $30,005 for George P. Clancy, or 15% of his total compensation. (We wouldn’t mind getting rates like that on our savings — it would sure help pay the area’s higher-than-average gas bills.)

Last week we wrote about an American executive who got a sweet deal after his employer decided to move its headquarters from Chicago to London. But you needn’t worry that there will be some kind of executive vacuum here in the States:  Yesterday we found an equally impressive agreement that will soon transplant a London-based executive to New York.

The executive in question is C. William Eccleshare, who has been working as the Chief Executive Officer—International of Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc. (CCO). The company just promoted Eccleshare to the position of CEO of the entire company (including its indirect parent entities, CC Media Holdings, Inc. and Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), which means that he will oversee operations here in the United States and internationally.

Clear Channel included a summary of the terms in Eccleshare’s new employment agreement in an 8-K filed January 24; presumably the agreement itself will be filed soon. The agreement’s term runs through December 31, 2014 and will automatically renew each year thereafter until one side or the other wants to end it. Eccleshare will get an annual salary of $1 million, but that’s just the tip of the compensation iceberg. He will also get a performance bonus under the new agreement that has a target of “not less than” $1 million, although he may earn up to twice that amount; and he can also earn up to $300,000 more for what Clear Channel is calling an “Additional Bonus Opportunity.”

Correction: The headline on an early version of this post incorrectly said O’Donnell would get “free” clothing instead of discounted clothing. My apologies for the error.

American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) describes itself as offering “high-quality, on-trend clothing, accessories and personal care products at affordable prices.” But while it pours effort into making the case that its clothes are a good deal, it put far less into making clear just how good a deal its retiring chief executive got on his way out the door.

As retirement (or severance) packages go, James O’Donnell is no Samuel Palmisano. But he is getting a handsome sum as he steps down from the top job at American Eagle Outfitters on January 28, a move that was telegraphed at least as far back as March. (Sonya footnoted his replacement’s compensation package the day before Thanksgiving.)

Executives leave companies for all kinds of reasons, but we always arch a collective eyebrow when the departure is announced suddenly, without much (or any) explanation, and it involves millions of dollars.

Such is the case of Barbara M. Pooley, Chief Administrative Officer with Kimco Realty Corporation (KIM), the real-estate investment trust that leases 138 million square feet in 940 shopping centers located in 44 states and a handful of other countries.

Pooley has worked for Kimco for a little less than 5 years, having started in 2007 as a vice president of finance and investor relations. The company promoted her along the way, and she landed the job of Executive Vice-President and Chief Administrative Officer in June, 2010.