9th Cir. Says that Consumer Consented to TCPA Calls

Plaintiff argues, though, that her consent extended only to calls concerning the quality of Health Net’s services and not to calls concerning the quality of Dr. Schwartz’ services. We disagree because the text in the Enrollment Form sweeps broadly. Plaintiff authorized calls pertaining to the operation of her health plan and, relatedly, to the quality of her health plan. The calls at issue were intended to measure whether Plaintiff’s experience with a doctor that Health Net assigned Plaintiff through her health plan was satisfactory. It takes little imagination to see how that feedback might assist in improving the quality of Plaintiff’s health plan generally.   Further, it does not matter that MTC, rather than Health Net itself, ultimately placed the calls. As the Sixth Circuit has explained, “[t]he FCC’s rulings in this area make no distinction between directly providing one’s cell phone number … and taking steps to make that number available through other methods, like consenting to disclose that number to other entities for certain purposes.” Baisden v. Credit Adjustments, Inc., 813 F.3d 338, 346 (6th Cir. 2016). Plaintiff “took steps” to make her number available to MTC. True, Plaintiff could not have known the identity of the specific entity that would ultimately call her. But when Plaintiff authorized Health Net to disclose her phone number for certain purposes, she necessarily authorized someone other than Health Net to make calls for those purposes. Specifically, she authorized calls from entities to which Health Net disclosed her information.⁴ MTC falls within that category.