Fulton Bank Arbitration Ruling: Checking-Account Clause Fails to Cover Loan Robocall in TCPA Class Action

A federal court in Virginia refused on October 27, 2026 to send a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action against Fulton Bank, N.A. to arbitration, holding in Ertl v. Fulton Bank, N.A., 2026 WL 3218580 (W.D. Va.), that the arbitration clause in the plaintiff's checking-account agreement did not reach a prerecorded call pitching a new loan. The Fulton Bank arbitration ruling turns on scope, not assent: the customer had agreed to arbitrate checking-account disputes, but the bank wrote the clause around the account and a closed list of account services, so a loan solicitation fell outside it and the putative class case stays in federal court.

The decision is a single district court order, and the full opinion was not publicly posted when this article went to press; the account below rests on the docket and on the first practitioner analysis of the order, published October 28 by the TCPA defense team at Troutman Amin and syndicated by the National Law Review. What makes it worth a close read is where it sits. The Western District of Virginia is inside the Fourth Circuit, the circuit that in Mey v. DIRECTV (2020) read a wireless carrier's clause broadly enough to sweep in robocall claims against a corporate affiliate. Ertl shows the limit of that generosity: a broad presumption in favor of arbitration does not rescue a clause whose own words point at one product.

What did the court decide in Ertl v. Fulton Bank?

The court denied Fulton Bank's motion to compel arbitration. According to the Troutman Amin analysis, the order did not rest on any failure of contract formation; the court accepted that Ertl was bound by the arbitration terms in his checking-account agreement. It held instead that the scope of those terms "simply did not encompass" the marketing call at issue. The case therefore proceeds as a putative class action in the Western District of Virginia rather than as an individual arbitration.

Item	Detail
Case	Ertl v. Fulton Bank, N.A., No. 3:26-cv-00011
Court	U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia (Charlottesville)
Presiding judge	Magistrate Judge Joel C. Hoppe
Filed	February 20, 2026
Statute	Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227
Ruling	Motion to compel arbitration denied, October 27, 2026
Citation	2026 WL 3218580
Ground	Clause scope limited to checking-account matters; loan solicitation outside it
Next deadline	Notice of appeal under 9 U.S.C. § 16(a) due within 30 days (November 26, 2026)

The Justia docket lists Hoppe, a magistrate judge appointed to the Western District of Virginia in 2014 and reappointed in 2021, as the presiding judge. A magistrate judge presides over a civil case for all purposes only when the parties consent under 28 U.S.C. § 636(c), so the listing suggests the parties consented; if so, any appeal goes straight to the Fourth Circuit rather than to a district judge.

The facts: one prerecorded call about a loan

Fulton Bank is the banking subsidiary of Fulton Financial Corporation of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and operates branches across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia. The plaintiff, Ertl, held a Fulton checking account. According to the commentary on the ruling, his telephone number was listed on the National Do Not Call Registry, and he had separately asked the bank not to send him marketing.

Ertl alleges that Fulton nonetheless placed a single prerecorded call to him, asking that he "call Fulton Bank if he was in the market for a new loan." He filed suit on February 20, 2026 under 47 U.S.C. § 227, the federal statute that restricts artificial or prerecorded voice calls and telemarketing to numbers on the national do-not-call list, on behalf of himself and a putative class of people who received similar calls.

Fulton responded with a motion to compel arbitration built on the dispute-resolution terms in Ertl's deposit account agreement. Those terms are the standard tool consumer banks use to move putative class claims into individual arbitration, typically paired with a class action waiver. If the motion had succeeded, the class allegations would effectively have ended and Ertl would have been left with one individual claim.

Why did the court refuse to send the Fulton Bank TCPA case to arbitration?

Because the bank's own drafting tied the clause to the checking account. As the Troutman Amin team summarized it, Fulton "expressly limited" its arbitration agreement to disputes arising out of the services provided in connection with the checking account. The clause reached disputes that "in any way arises from or relates to this agreement, your account," followed by a list of account-related matters. The court read that list as exhaustive rather than illustrative, because the clause lacked any signal, such as "for example" or "including but not limited to," that the enumerated items were merely samples of a broader category.

That reading left the call outside the clause. A prerecorded solicitation inviting a customer to apply for a new loan is not a dispute about the checking account, about the services listed as account services, or about the deposit agreement itself. The relationship between the call and the account was, at most, that the bank had the customer's number because he banked there. The court treated that link as too thin.

The holding fits a familiar line of TCPA scope cases. Courts routinely compel arbitration when the challenged calls concern the very account the agreement governs, most often collection calls on a delinquent card or loan. They are far less receptive when the calls are marketing for a different product, because the claim then arises from the statute and the solicitation, not from the contract.

Can a bank's checking account arbitration clause cover marketing calls?

It can, but only if the clause is written to reach them. Under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), arbitration is a matter of consent, and a court asked to compel arbitration must decide whether the dispute falls within what the parties agreed to arbitrate. The Supreme Court's presumption of arbitrability, traced to Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital v. Mercury Construction Corp. (1983), tells courts to resolve genuine doubts about scope in favor of arbitration. But in Granite Rock Co. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters (2010), the Court made clear that the presumption applies only where a validly formed clause is ambiguous about whether it covers the dispute. It does not rewrite clear language.

The Fourth Circuit's own test runs the same way. In American Recovery Corp. v. Computerized Thermal Imaging (1996) and Long v. Silver (2001), the court held that a broadly worded clause covering disputes "arising out of or relating to" an agreement reaches claims that do not arise under the contract itself, so long as they bear a "significant relationship" to it. The operative question is always what the clause is tethered to. A clause tethered to "this agreement" or to "our relationship" can reach a great deal; a clause tethered to "your account" and a list of account services reaches what concerns that account.

Ertl applies those principles. Nothing in the reported analysis suggests the court disfavored arbitration or questioned the clause's enforceability. The court asked what the clause covered and found the answer in its text.

How the Fulton Bank ruling compares with Mey v. DIRECTV and other TCPA scope cases

The closest appellate authority binding on the Western District of Virginia is Mey v. DIRECTV, LLC, 971 F.3d 284 (4th Cir. 2020). Diana Mey sued DIRECTV over telemarketing calls; DIRECTV invoked the arbitration clause in an AT&T Mobility wireless agreement under which Mey was an authorized user, because AT&T had acquired DIRECTV and the clause covered AT&T "affiliates." A divided panel vacated the district court's denial of arbitration, reading "affiliates" to include companies that became affiliates later and holding that the clause's requirement to arbitrate "all disputes and claims between us" was broad enough, with the presumption of arbitrability, to cover the TCPA claims. Judge Pamela Harris dissented.

Less than two months later, the Ninth Circuit went the other way on materially identical facts in Revitch v. DIRECTV, LLC, 977 F.3d 713 (9th Cir. 2020), applying California's rule against absurd results and concluding that the parties could not reasonably have meant to arbitrate every dispute with any company AT&T might ever acquire. Judge Mark Bennett dissented.

Case	Court and year	Clause language relied on	Calls at issue	Result
Ertl v. Fulton Bank	W.D. Va., Oct. 27, 2026	Disputes arising from or relating to the agreement and "your account," plus enumerated account services	One prerecorded call pitching a new loan	Arbitration denied: outside scope
Mey v. DIRECTV	4th Cir., 2020	"All disputes and claims between us," including affiliates	Telemarketing by later-acquired affiliate	Arbitration compelled (denial vacated)
Revitch v. DIRECTV	9th Cir., 2020	Same AT&T Mobility clause	Telemarketing by later-acquired affiliate	Arbitration denied
Gamble v. New England Auto Finance	11th Cir., 2018 (unpublished)	Auto loan agreement clause	Texts soliciting new business after payoff	Arbitration denied
VonDeylen v. Aptive Environmental	8th Cir., Mar. 5, 2026 (unpublished)	Disputes tied to the agreement, services, or relationship	Texts sent two-plus years after service ended	Arbitration compelled (reversed)

Read together, the cases sort on one variable: what the clause names as its subject. Mey turned on "all disputes and claims between us," language untethered to any product. VonDeylen, where the Eighth Circuit reversed the District of Minnesota and compelled arbitration of texts sent more than two years after the customer's pest-control contract ended, turned on a clause covering the parties' relationship. Gamble, in which the Eleventh Circuit held that texts seeking new business did not arise out of a paid-off car loan, and Ertl turned on clauses pinned to a particular contract or account. Fulton's clause sat at the narrow end of that range, and it lost on the language its drafters chose.

Can one prerecorded call support a TCPA class action?

Yes. The TCPA contains two private rights of action that matter here. Section 227(c)(5), the do-not-call provision, lets a person sue only after receiving "more than one telephone call within any 12-month period" from the same entity in violation of the do-not-call rules. That is the one-call safe harbor the Troutman Amin commentary flags. The prerecorded-call prohibition in § 227(b), enforced through § 227(b)(3), has no comparable threshold. A single artificial or prerecorded voice call made without the required consent is a completed violation.

That distinction explains why Ertl's complaint can survive on one call. His do-not-call registration and his request not to be marketed to matter as background and on consent, but the claim that carries the case is the prerecorded message. For a putative class, the number of calls each member received matters for damages and manageability, not for whether a claim exists.

How much are TCPA damages per call?

Both private rights of action permit recovery of actual damages or $500 per violation, whichever is greater, and both allow the court to increase the award up to three times, to $1,500 per violation, where the defendant acted willfully or knowingly. Some courts have allowed separate recoveries for the same call under different TCPA provisions because the statute measures damages per violation rather than per call. Applied to a calling campaign that reached thousands of numbers, those figures are why a class TCPA case against a regional bank carries real exposure, and why the bank's first move was to try to arbitrate it individually.

The complaint's class size and the number of calls Fulton placed are not reported in the sources available, and no damages figure has been alleged publicly. Those numbers will come out in class discovery if the case proceeds.

Can Fulton Bank appeal the arbitration ruling?

Yes, immediately. Section 16(a)(1) of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) allows an interlocutory appeal from an order refusing to compel arbitration, an exception to the usual rule that only final judgments are appealable. Under the Supreme Court's decision in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski (2023), a district court must stay its proceedings while such an appeal is pending, so a timely notice of appeal would freeze class discovery and class certification briefing in Charlottesville.

Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1)(A) gives Fulton 30 days from entry of the order, which points to November 26, 2026. No notice of appeal had been reported as of October 29. An appeal would go to the Fourth Circuit, where Fulton would argue that Mey and the presumption of arbitrability require a broader reading; Ertl would answer that Granite Rock confines the presumption to genuinely ambiguous text and that the enumerated list is not ambiguous.

What it means for drafters, banks and claimants' counsel

For drafters of consumer banking agreements. The practical lesson is about the noun at the center of the arbitration clause. A clause that covers disputes about "your account" is an account clause. Institutions that want customer-contact claims arbitrated, including TCPA claims over marketing for other products, need language that reaches the customer relationship and communications with the customer, and any list of examples needs to be expressly non-exhaustive. The Troutman Amin team's own takeaway was that broader wording of exactly that kind could have avoided the result. The fix has to be made in every agreement that is meant to bind: a broad clause in a loan agreement does not help if the customer only ever signed the deposit agreement.

For defendants weighing scope against mass arbitration risk. Broadening the clause is not free. A clause wide enough to pull every robocall into individual arbitration also invites coordinated filings. Mass arbitration campaigns run on the per-claim fee schedules of the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and JAMS, and a statute with $500 to $1,500 in damages per call is the kind of claim claimant firms aggregate. Some businesses deliberately keep marketing-related claims in court, where a class action can be defended and settled once. Others pair a broad clause with a mass-arbitration protocol, batching or bellwether provisions. Ertl does not choose between those strategies, but it shows that a narrow clause chooses for the business, often without anyone having decided to.

For claimants' and class counsel. The decision gives plaintiffs a template for TCPA cases against financial institutions: identify which agreement the defendant relies on, map the clause's subject matter, and line up the calls against it. Marketing for a different product than the one the agreement governs is the strongest case for staying in court. The same analysis applies to banks, telecom carriers, insurers and any company that sells several products under separate contracts.

For TCPA compliance teams. The arbitration question is secondary to the underlying exposure. A prerecorded marketing call to a number on the do-not-call list, after a request not to be marketed to, is the fact pattern the statute was written for. Consent records, suppression of do-not-call numbers and internal opt-out handling remain the first line of defense; the arbitration clause is only the second.

What happens next in Ertl v. Fulton Bank

Two paths are open. If Fulton appeals by November 26, 2026, the case will pause under Bielski while the Fourth Circuit considers the scope question, which typically takes a year or more from notice to decision. If it does not appeal, the case moves to an answer on the merits, class discovery into Fulton's calling campaign and consent records, and an eventual motion for class certification under Rule 23. Fulton could also seek to amend its account agreements going forward, but a revised clause would not automatically reach calls already made under the old terms, and courts look hard at attempts to apply new arbitration terms retroactively to pending litigation.

FAQ

What did the court decide in Ertl v. Fulton Bank?

On October 27, 2026, the Western District of Virginia denied Fulton Bank's motion to compel arbitration, holding that the arbitration clause in the plaintiff's checking-account agreement did not cover a prerecorded call marketing a new loan. The TCPA class action stays in federal court.

Why did the court refuse to send the Fulton Bank TCPA case to arbitration?

The clause covered disputes arising from or relating to the checking-account agreement and the account, plus a list of account services, and the court read that list as exhaustive. A solicitation for a different product, a loan, fell outside those terms.

Can one prerecorded call support a TCPA class action?

Yes. The do-not-call private right of action in 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5) requires more than one call within 12 months, but the prerecorded-call prohibition in § 227(b) has no minimum, so a single unconsented prerecorded call is enough for a claim.

How much are TCPA damages per call?

The TCPA allows the greater of actual damages or $500 per violation, and the court may treble that to $1,500 per violation for willful or knowing conduct. Some courts permit separate recovery under more than one provision for the same call.

Can Fulton Bank appeal the arbitration ruling?

Yes. Under 9 U.S.C. § 16(a), an order denying a motion to compel arbitration is immediately appealable, and Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski (2023) requires a stay of district court proceedings during the appeal. The 30-day deadline to file a notice of appeal runs to November 26, 2026.

How should businesses draft arbitration clauses to cover TCPA claims?

A clause meant to reach marketing calls should cover disputes relating to the customer relationship and communications with the customer, not only "your account," and any list of covered matters should be expressly non-exhaustive. The clause must appear in each agreement the business intends to rely on.