Imperial Health Holdings, a medical clinic in Pasadena, California, violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by “bombarding” consumers with unsolicited fax ads, alleged Jeffery Katz’s class action Monday (docket 3:24-cv-02854) in U.S. District Court for Northern California. The TCPA was enacted to protect consumers from unsolicited and unwanted phone and fax solicitations “exactly like those alleged in this case,” said Katz’s complaint. Imperial’s unwanted fax ads forced the plaintiff and the class members to pay for the costs of paper and toner, it said. Imperial’s faxes also invaded Katz’s privacy and peace, it said. He also was distracted, inconvenienced and annoyed by the unwanted faxes, it said. The complaint seeks an injunction requiring Imperial to cease all unsolicited fax ads, plus an award of statutory damages and treble damages for Imperial’s knowing and willful TCPA violations.
Sienna Marketing & Consulting, which offers business financing services, violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by making telemarketing calls and sending text messages without consent to consumers who listed their phone numbers on the national do not call registry, alleged Mark Ortega’s class action Monday (docket 5:24-cv-00487) in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in San Antonio. The plaintiff also alleges that Sienna, which operates as Creative Capital Solutions, violated the Texas Telephone Solicitation Act by making telemarketing calls and sending text messages to consumers in Texas. Ortega has never consented to receive telemarketing communications from Sienna, yet the firm sent him at least 10 text messages and made numerous calls to his cellphone, the complaint said. Around March 7, the Texas resident received a text message from Sienna’s agent, Vincent Palazzo, with Palazzo's contact information, said the complaint. The plaintiff responded by instructing Palazzo not to contact him anymore, but he nevertheless received nine more text messages from Palazzo the very next day, it said. The unauthorized communications that Ortega received from Sienna have harmed him in the form of annoyance, nuisance and invasion of privacy, “and occupied and otherwise disturbed the use and enjoyment of his phone,” said the complaint.
U.S. District Judge for Massachusetts Allison Burroughs granted Johns Hopkins defendants’ motion to stay proceedings in In Re: MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, said her text-only order (docket 3083) Monday in Boston. Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Health System requested in a joint motion Friday that seven cases in the multidistrict litigation be stayed pending resolution of settlement proceedings in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Maryland. In a Jan. 3 court-ordered mediation, the parties to the circuit court actions negotiated a classwide settlement that, if approved, would resolve the claims pending against Johns Hopkins in the seven federal court cases, said the motion. That settlement was consummated March 27, and plaintiffs’ counsel in the Baltimore City cases filed an unopposed motion for preliminary approval April 4. The parties agree that the most efficient path forward is to stay the Johns Hopkins cases in the MDL pending resolution of the request for class settlement approval pending in the Baltimore City Circuit Court, it said. The stay would preserve Johns Hopkins’ ability to litigate threshold issues such as the Class Action Fairness Act and standing in the event that the circuit court doesn’t approve the settlement, the motion said. Following the resolution of the class settlement request, the parties will confer and provide the court with a proposal for the Johns Hopkins cases in the MDL. To date, 10 class actions have been filed against Johns Hopkins, seven in federal court and three in the Baltimore City court; an 11th case was recently dismissed, said the motion. The cases involve Progress Software's May 2023 data breach in MOVEit file-transfer software.
BookTix, a virtual box office for local community performances, conceals processing fees until the final moments of checkout, in violation of New York’s “all-in pricing” mandate, alleged a fraud class action Monday (docket 7:24-cv-03670) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in White Plains.
Sprout Social, a developer of social media management platforms, made materially false and misleading statements and failed to disclose “material adverse facts” from Nov. 2 to May 2, leading to “artificially inflated” stock prices, alleged a securities fraud class action (docket 1:24-cv-03867) Monday in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois.
Perpay, a credit card company that targets consumers who are seeking to build or rehabilitate their credit histories, began sending telemarketing text messages to plaintiff Ryan Soud’s cellphone in late January, and the messaging continued despite Soud’s multiple opt-out requests, alleged Soud’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Friday (docket 3:24-cv-00467) in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida in Jacksonville. Soud first wrote “stop” on Jan. 31, and Perpay acknowledged the request that same day, said the complaint. It therefore was “unreasonable” for Perpay to continue texting Soud, in light of its “representations” that Soud “had been opted out of further communications,” it said. As demonstrated by the several screenshots in Soud’s complaint, Perpay “does not honor consumer requests to opt out of text message solicitations,” it said. Perpay’s refusal to honor Soud’s opt-out requests demonstrates that Perpay hasn’t instituted procedures for maintaining a list of persons who request not to receive text messages, said the complaint. “The precise details regarding its lack of requisite policies and procedures” are solely within Perpay’s “knowledge and control,” it said. Perpay’s refusal to honor opt-out requests also demonstrates that the company doesn’t provide the proper training to its telemarketing personnel, and that it doesn’t maintain a standalone do-not-call list, it said. Upon information and belief, Prepay has access to outbound transmission reports for all text messages sent to consumers to advertise or promote its goods and services, said the complaint. These reports show the dates, times, target phone numbers and content of each message sent to Soud and the class members, it said. Prepay also has access to text message logs showing Soud’s and the class members’ inbound opt-out requests, it said.
Rebuilt Realty, a real estate broker in Travis County, Texas, has inundated plaintiff Ananda Camargo Chavez’s residential cellphone with at least 219 automated telemarketing text messages since March 2022, though her number has been listed on the national do not call registry for years, alleged her Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Friday (docket 1:24-cv-00504) in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in Austin. The messages all contain “short links” that advertise properties Rebuilt has available for sale, said the complaint. The messages are all addressed to a person named “Javier,” who Chavez doesn’t know, it said. To call Chavez “Javier” is “disingenuous to Hispanic Americans and labels them all alike,” said the complaint. It’s “akin” to calling all Asian persons “Wei” or "all Caucasians 'Steve,'” it said. None of Rebuilt’s agents is registered as a telephone solicitor with the Texas secretary of state, as state law requires, it said. A “reasonable seller” would investigate the reasons why it would be sending hundreds of messages to numbers on the national DNC registry that didn’t belong to “Javier,” it said. Chavez and all members of the class have been harmed by Rebuilt’s acts of “because their privacy has been violated and they were annoyed and harassed,” said the complaint.
Centennial Bank began notifying victims of a data breach April 19, “a whole year” after the breach occurred, alleged a negligence class action Friday (docket 4:24-cv-00415) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Arkansas.
John Lattimore seeks to hold Dell accountable for the injuries it inflicted on him and millions of similarly situated persons due to its “impermissibly inadequate data security,” alleged his class action Friday (docket 1:24-cv-00499) in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in Austin.
Blue Hammer Roofing makes or causes to be made telemarketing calls to consumers to solicit business for its services, and does so in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, alleged Preston Tucker’s class action Thursday (docket 1:24-cv-01287) in U.S. District Court for Colorado in Denver. Tucker personally listed his residential phone number with the national do not call registry in August 2021, yet he received 18 telemarketing calls from Blue Hammer or on its behalf between March 29 and April 5, including six calls on a single day, April 4, alleged his complaint. At no point during the relevant time period did Tucker and Blue Hammer “have a prior existing business relationship” permitting the Dallas-based residential and commercial roofing company to make telemarketing calls to the plaintiff’s residential number, it said. The Weld, Colorado, resident never consented to receiving telemarketing calls from Blue Hammer, said the complaint. The defendant or someone acting on its behalf violated Tucker’s privacy by making each of the unwanted telemarketing phone calls, “and they constitute a nuisance as they are annoying and harassing,” it said. Blue Hammer failed to honor the national DNC registrations of individuals’ residential lines while conducting telemarketing campaigns, it said.