In Coppock v. Citigroup, Inc., 2013 WL 1192632 (W.D.Wash. 2013), Judge Coughenour granted a Petition to Compel Arbitration in a TCPA/FDCPA class action.
The arbitration agreement clearly covers the TCPA and FDCPA claims. Citi made the calls to collect a debt it thought Coppock owed on her credit card account. Her claims based on those calls are thus “[c]laims relating to [her] account … or [her and Citi’s] relationship.” See Mediterranean Enters., Inc. v. Ssangyong Corp ., 708 F.2d 1458, 1464 (9th Cir.1983) (“ ‘relating to this agreement’ [is] … broad arbitration clause” language) (quotation marks omitted). That Citi may have mistakenly believed that Coppock’s account was in arrears does not change the fact that the collection call was related to the account. Indeed, Citi allegedly stopped calling Coppock after she transferred her outstanding balance to a different credit card company. (Dkt. No. 40 at 3 ¶ 2.4.) That only reinforces the conclusion that the calls were related to her account and her relationship with Citi. ¶ The cases to which Coppock cites are distinguishable. In In re Jiffy Lube International, Inc., Text Spam Litigation, 847 F.Supp.2d 1253 (S.D.Cal.2012), the court held that an arbitration agreement purporting to subject “any and all disputes” between Jiffy Lube and the plaintiff-“not limited to disputes arising from or related to the transaction or contract at issue”—was unconscionable because it would render “a tort action arising from a completely separate incident [subject to] arbitration.” Id. at 1262–63. The arbitration agreement here is not so unconscionably unlimited; it applies only to claims “relating to your account, a prior related account, or our relationship.” Smith v. Steinkamp, 318 F.3d 775 (7th Cir.2003), is distinguishable for the same reason. See id. at 777–78. And Jiffy Lube is further distinguishable in that the text message Jiffy Lube sent to the plaintiff in that case was a proactive marketing message offering a dis-count on future Jiffy Lube services-i.e., a message not related in any way to the contract the plaintiff had previously signed when he visited one of Jiffy Lube’s locations for an oil change. Jiffy Lube, 847 F.Supp.2d at 1263. By contrast, here, the phone calls were clearly related to Coppock’s card account. See, e.g., Cayanan, 2013 WL 784662, at *20 (calls made to plaintiffs “because Plaintiffs had failed to make timely payments on their accounts,” “for the limited purpose of collecting money owed them,” and “not … for advertising, marketing, or other purposes unrelated to the accounts,” were “ ‘related to’ the delinquent credit accounts” and thus TCPA claims based on those calls were covered by Citi arbitration clause).