In Fitzhenry v. Career Education Corporation, 2016 WL 792312, at *3 (N.D.Ill., 2016), Judge Darrah held that a TCPA Plaintiff properly pleaded derivative liability in a TCPA class action, and held that a professional TCPA Plaintiff could still be a proper class representative. Judge Darrah held that the facts as pleaded adequately pleaded derivative liability. Defendants argue that Plaintiff has not… Read More
In Banarji v. Wilshire Consumer Credit, 2016 WL 595323, at *3 (S.D.Cal., 2016), Judge Benitez denied class certification in a TCPA class action because the Plaintiff was not typical. The Plaintiff took out a loan with WCC, listing his cell phone number as ending in 0861 and his email address as “alubanarji@gmail.com”. He also listed his daughter, Plaintiff, as a reference… Read More
In Stevens-Bratton v. TruGreen, Inc., 2016 WL 155087, at *2 (W.D.Tenn., 2016), Judge Anderson denied a class certification motion on the basis that the Defendant responded to it with a Petition to Compel Arbitration, finding that the Arbitration Clause was not unconscionable. The unconscionability analysis is not unusual, so much as the procedural posture. TruGreen is a national lawn care… Read More
We previously reported on the Gannon v. Metwork Telephone Services, Inc., decision where the District Court denied class cert in a TCPA class action. (http://www.calautofinance.com/?p=4181). In Gannon v. Network Telephone Services, Inc., 2016 WL 145811, at *1 (9th Cir. 2016) (unpublished), the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court's denial of class certification. Paul Gannon challenges the district court's denial of… Read More
In Sandusky Wellness Center, LLC, v. ASD Specialty Healthcare, Inc., 2016 WL 75535, at *2-4 (N.D.Ohio 2016), Judge Zouhary denied class cert in a TCPA blast-fax case. Identifying fax recipients is typically accomplished by examining fax logs that confirm which faxes successfully transmitted and which failed. See e.g., Ira Holtzman, C.P.A. v. Turza, 728 F.3d 682, 684–85 (7th Cir. 2013)… Read More
In Ott v. Mortgage Investors Corporation of Ohio, Inc., 2016 WL 54678, at *1 (D.Or., 2016), Magistrate Judge Stewart approved a class action settlement on largely the following terms: Plaintiffs filed this class action on April 18, 2014, alleging violations by defendants of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 USC § 227 et seq (“TCPA”), by means of a nationwide telemarketing scheme… Read More
In Shamblin v. Obama for America, 2015 WL 1909765 (M.D. Fla. 2015), Judge Covington denied class certification in this TCPA litigation. First, Judge Covington found no commonality amongst the putative classmembers. Based on the current record, the Court determines that there can never be common answers to the questions of whether (1) the telephone number dialed was assigned to a… Read More
In Johnson v. Yahoo!, Inc., 2016 WL 25711, at *1-2 (N.D.Ill. 2016), Judge Shah found that part of a TCPA class could be certified against Yahoo!. The facts were as follows. Yahoo! Messenger also allows users to send personalized messages to people's cell phones through a feature called Mobile SMS Messenger Service, or PC2SMS. PC2SMS bridges the gap between the online and… Read More
In St. Louis Heart Center, Inc. v. Nomax, Inc., 2015 WL 9451046, at *2 (E.D.Mo., 2015), Judge White refused to strike a TCPA blast-fax class action definition as being overlord, but then limited the Plaintiff's discovery solely to the faxes sent -- not to all faxes possibly sent during the 4-year SofL period. Plaintiff served a subpoena on Windstream Communications, LLC (“Windstream”)… Read More
In Key v. Integrity Surveillance Solutions, Inc., 2015 WL 8178055, at *3 (E.D.Mich. 2015), Judge Cohn issued pre-certification class discovery on a TCPA class action. Integ says that Plaintiffs intend to circumvent the Court's order limiting discovery with the main intent to determine class members from a reverse phone search in order to strength their case. Specifically, Integ relies on… Read More
In Madrigal v. C-Two Group, Inc., et. al, 2015 WL 8477487, at *7-8 (N.D.Cal. 2015), Judge Gilliam certified a TCPA text message class action. The facts were as follows: C & L is the owner of the Club, and it hired C-Two Group as its manager. C-Two hired the vendor Metrowize, which is not a party to this action, to… Read More
Kolinek v. Walgreen, Co., 2015 WL 7450759, at *7-8 (N.D.Ill., 2015), Judge Kennelly overruled objectors to a proposed TCPA class settlement, and their concern that they would receive pennies on the dollar compared to individual TCPA cases. The decision is a reasonable primer on the terms to include in TCPA class settlement agreements in order to withstand objectors. For one thing, if… Read More
In Abella v. Mozea, LLC, , 2015 WL 6599747, at *4 (E.D.Pa. 2015), Judge Dalzell allowed a TCPA text-message class action past the pleading stage, based on allegations that Defendant SAC is a student loan consolidation and forgiveness service that offers assistance to consumers hoping to alleviate their student loan debt burden. Compl. at ¶ 10. Defendant Mozeo is an… Read More
In Connector Castings, Inc. v. Joseph T. Ryerson & Son, Inc., 2015 WL 6431704, at *2-3 (E.D.Mo., 2015), Judge Limbaugh allowed a TCPA class action past the pleadings stage. He rejected the Defendant's argument that a Rule 68 offer mooted the class. Plaintiff contends that the offer of judgment was invalid insomuch as plaintiff had on file a motion to… Read More
In Shamblin v. Obama for America, 2015 WL 6123731, at *1-2 (M.D.Fla., 2015), Judge Covington declined to grant class-wide injunctive relief under the TCPA since she previously denied class certification in the Action. Shamblin seeks an injunction barring the remaining Defendants from any future violations of the TCPA, as follows: "Obama for America and DNC Services Corp., and their respective… Read More
In Bee, Denning, Inc. v. Capital Alliance Group, 2015 WL 5675798, at *1-2 (S.D.Cal.,2015), Judge Bashant certified fax-blast and cell-phone classes arising from a telemarketing scheme that included unsolicited faxes followed by automated calls to cellular telephones. The facts were as follows: The allegations at the heart of this case involve a familiar feature of the modern business and consumer landscape-telemarketing.… Read More
In Wasvary v. WB Holdings, LLC, 2015 WL 5161370, at *6-7 (E.D.Mich., 2015) , Judge Cox found that a TCPA class action plaintiff could not avoid a Rule 68 "pick-off" offer by filing a premature, pre-emptive Motion for Class Certification. In cases involving statutory damages that are small in amount, like TCPA cases, Defendants often attempt to “pick off” the named… Read More
In Blair v. CBE Group, Inc. 2015 WL 5086375 (S.D.Cal. 2015), Judge Anello denied certification of a TCPA class defined as "Skip Trace Class: All persons within the United States to whom CBE placed a call to a cellular telephone at a number that CBE did not obtain either prior express consent from the debtor, and that call was made using… Read More
In Soular v. Northern Tier Energy LP, 2015 WL 5024786, at *8-9 (D.Minn.,2015), Judge Nelson denied a Motion to Dismiss because the matters raised by the Defendant regarding an ATDS and consent were outside the pleadings. That discussion of the case won't be otherwise summarized here. But, Judge Nelson denied the Defendant's Motion to Strike, finding both that it was… Read More
In Bais Yaakov of Spring Valley v. ACT, Inc., 2015 WL 4979406, at *3 (C.A.1 (Mass.),2015), the First Circuit Court of Appeals held that a TCPA defendant can not moot a class action by picking off the named plaintiff through a Rule 68 offer. Against this background, ACT advances a nifty stratagem for defeating motions for class certification: offer only the… Read More
