When she enrolled in Health Net’s HMO, Fober gave her cell phone number and consented to its use and disclosure for a variety of purposes including quality improvement. She was later auto-dialed repeatedly by the defendant seeking her response as to the quality of services she had received from a particular Health Net doctor. The nature of the call determines whether it falls within the scope of the called person’s express prior consent. Here, defendant’s calls related to quality improvement and so fell within the scope of plaintiff’s prior consent even if the services in question were rendered by a network doctor rather than Health Net itself. And it does not matter that the call was placed by another entity, rather than Health Net, and allegedly not on Health Net’s behalf since plaintiff had consented to disclosure and use of her number for the specified purposes including quality improvement.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Graber, J.); March 29, 2018; 2018 WL 1526365