In Mora v. Zeta Interactive Corp., 2016 WL 3477222, at *2-3 (E.D.Cal., 2016), Judge Drozd denied a motion to dismiss filed by a TCPA blast-fax’s CEO who was named in a TCPA case against his company.
In the instant case, defendants argue that the allegations specifically leveled against defendant Steinberg lack details of his direct participation in any wrongdoing and are the type of “threadbare recitals of a cause of action’s elements, supported by mere conclusory statements” found to be insufficient by the Supreme Court.3 See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 663. In opposition, plaintiff’s rely upon the decisions in Bais Yaakov of Spring Valley v. Graduation Source, LLC, No. 14-cv-3232-NSR, 2016 WL 1271693, at *1, *5–6 (S.D. N.Y. March 29, 2016) and Ott v. Mortgage Investors Corp. of Ohio, Inc., 65 F. Supp. 3d 1046, 1060 (D. Or. 2014). Plaintiff argues that in these two cases “nearly identical allegations [were] found to sufficiently allege a violation of the TCPA against a corporate officer.” (Doc. No. 21, at 4.) Defendants respond that “[e]ach case Plaintiff cites as support is distinguishable in that each contained specific allegations of the executives’ direct participation in the alleged TCPA violations.” (Doc. No. 23, at 2.) The court finds that the allegations of plaintiff’s amended complaint are indeed relatively similar to the allegations found to be sufficient in this context by the district courts in Bais and Ott. In Bais, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant “specifically, individually and personally directed and authorized all of the fax advertisements …, was intimately involved in the program to send these fax advertisements, including the design of the fax advertisements and authorized payment for the sending of those fax advertisements.” 2016 WL 1271693, at *5. The court found these allegations to be sufficient to state a claim against the corporate officer under the TCPA. Id. at *6. Likewise, in Ott, the plaintiffs alleged that the individual defendants were responsible for designing and implementing all activity by [the corporate defendant’s] telemarketers, including deliberately turning off all Do–Not–Call lists. In addition, three of them ‘personally received numerous emails concerning requests to stop the calls by members of the Internal Do–Not–Call Class,’ but ignored them and continued to cause [the corporate defendant] to make telemarketing calls with its Do–No–Call lists disabled. 65 F. Supp. 3d at 1061 (citations omitted). These allegations were also was found sufficient to state a claim. Id. at 1061. The Ott court differentiated its case from Mais where there were “bare assertions that the defendant, who was vice president and 20% owner, controlled and authorized the policies and practices regarding the TCPA.” Id. With the exception that the alleged unlawful activity here is fax advertisements rather than telephone calls, plaintiff’s allegations essentially mirror those in Bais. Moreover, while the allegations of the complaint in Ott were slightly more detailed than those before the court here, specifically regarding emails that the individual defendants had allegedly received, the allegations of plaintiff’s first amended complaint are still much more similar to those found to be sufficient in Ott than to those found deficient in Mais. See also Starr v. Baca, 652 F.3d 1202, 1216-17 (9th Cir. 2011) (concluding in the context of a prisoner’s civil rights action that the complaint’s allegations were sufficient to state a claim of supervisorial liability in wake of the decisions in Iqbal and Twombly in part because “[p]laintiff’s complaint may be dismissed only when defendant’s plausible alternative explanation is so convincing that plaintiff’s explanation is im plausible.”) Accordingly, the court finds that the allegations of the first amended complaint are sufficient to state a cognizable claim against defendant Steinberg for violation of the TCPA.