Insurance Fraud Counterclaim ‘Frivolous on Its Face,’ Says TCPA Plaintiff

Plymouth Rock’s Feb. 16 counterclaim alleging that Telephone Consumer Protection Act plaintiff Robert Clough violates the New Jersey Insurance Fraud Prevention Act (see 2402200001) “is nothing more than a contrived attempt to intimidate and bully a consumer for daring to hold it to account for illegal telemarketing,” said Clough’s motion to dismiss the counterclaim Friday (docket 2:21-cv-19343) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark. Plymouth’s counterclaim alleges Clough runs a “cottage industry” of filing “sham” TCPA lawsuits against insurance companies, of which the class action against Plymouth is only the latest. But the counterclaim “is frivolous on its face” and the court should dismiss it with prejudice, said Clough’s motion. The company is suing Clough for insurance fraud, even though he “has never submitted an insurance claim to Plymouth, never applied for benefits, never been a Plymouth customer, never applied for an insurance policy from Plymouth, and never initiated any communication to Plymouth whatsoever,” said the motion. The "sole basis" for Plymouth’s counterclaim is that when the company’s telemarketer placed an illegal unsolicited call to Clough in August 2021, he answered the call "and played along with the telemarketer’s bogus script so that the telemarketer would divulge who was calling and why, staying on the line long enough to obtain an insurance quote, even though he wasn’t really interested in obtaining an insurance policy," said the plaintiff's motion. Plymouth doesn't claim to have ever received any false information from Clough, "let alone to have ever relied upon it to its detriment or otherwise," it said.