In St. Louis Heart Center, Inc. v. Athenahealth, Inc., 2015 WL 6777873, at *4-5 (E.D.Mo., 2015), Judge Fleissig stayed a TCPA case after the Plaintiff rejected a Rule 68 offer of judgment based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Campbell-Ewald.
After carefully considering the parties’ briefs and supplemental authority, and weighing all of the competing interests in this case, the Court concludes that a stay is warranted. Like this case, Campbell–Ewald is a putative class action alleging violations of the TCPA, in which the defendant offered the named plaintiff complete relief on his individual claim before a class had been certified. Plaintiff here does not dispute that Defendant offered it complete relief. Nor does Plaintiff dispute that two out of the three issues on which the Supreme Court granted review in Campbell–Ewald are potentially dispositive of this case, in that the Supreme Court may conclusively determine that the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to hear Plaintiff’s claims. And in that event, the significant time, expense, and resources required of both parties to litigate this case would have been wasted. For this reason, several district courts have elected to stay similar proceedings pending a decision in Campbell–Ewald. See Yaakov v. Varitronics, LLC, No. CIV. 14–5008 ADM/FLN, 2015 WL 5092501, at *3 (D.Minn. Aug. 28, 2015) (collecting cases). By contrast, Plaintiff has not asserted, and the Court does not find, that Plaintiff would be unduly prejudiced by a stay. This case is still very young. The parties have conducted little, if any, discovery; and other than the instant motions, no substantive issues have been or are scheduled to be litigated. Thus, staying the case now would not significantly disrupt the litigation process. Moreover, the length of this stay will be finite and moderate. The Supreme Court has already heard oral argument on Campbell–Ewald, and it will reach a decision this term. Finally, although Plaintiff has not raised any concerns regarding the loss of evidence, the Court will order the parties to preserve all potentially relevant evidence during the stay and will also order the parties to promptly notify the Court and opposing counsel if and when any party learns that any witness with discoverable information will be unavailable for any reason, so that the witness’s deposition may be taken promptly and his or her testimony preserved. Given the protection of these measures, and the significant impact that the Supreme Court’s decision may have on the threshold issue of jurisdiction in this case, the Court finds that a stay of limited duration will conserve significant resources without unfair prejudice or burden on the Plaintiff. Therefore, the Court will grant Defendant’s request to stay this action pending a decision in Campbell–Ewald.