TomoCredit engages in unsolicited text messaging to promote its credit relief services to consumers who have listed their phone numbers on the national do not call registry, alleged plaintiff Heriberto Valiente’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Friday (docket 1:24-cv-21483) in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in Miami. Valiente seeks injunctive relief to halt TomoCredit’s unlawful conduct, “which has resulted in intrusion into the peace and quiet in a realm that is private and personal” to her and her class members, said the complaint. Valiente began receiving TomoCredit’s text messages Nov. 22, though she never had a business relationship with the company, nor did she ever sign any type of authorization permitting or allowing the company to send her text message solicitations, it said. She also listed her phone number on the national DNC registry at least three years before receiving the text messages, it said. Court records show that Valiente’s lawsuit is the third TCPA complaint filed against TomoCredit since Dec. 5.
Allied Collection Services of California violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act when it attempted, through “systematic calls,” to collect on past-due credit card bills that plaintiff Sophia De La Torre defaulted on, alleged De La Torre’s class action Friday (docket 2:24-cv-03234) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. De La Torre was feeling harassed by Allied’s repeated phone calls, so she demanded that the company stop calling her, said the complaint. Allied’s representatives nevertheless “have persisted with their coercive attempts at extracting payment” from De La Torre, it said. She estimates that Allied placed no fewer than 15 calls to her cellphone without her consent, it said.
Plaintiffs Christopher Rosing, Jarrett Civelli and Jeffrey Haagenson seek the dismissal of Lumen Technologies as a defendant in their fraud complaint against CenturyLink, said their unopposed motion Friday (docket 3:23-cv-01739) in U.S. District Court for Oregon in Portland. The plaintiffs’ class action alleges that CenturyLink reneged on its promises to lock in monthly internet prices for residential Price For Life program subscribers who remained in good standing, maintained service at the same residential address without interruption and didn’t change their CenturyLink service plans (see 2311270013). The motion to dismiss Lumen from the class action “is made for good cause,” said the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs have reviewed the jurisdictional arguments about Lumen, and the parties “have agreed to engage in a further exchange of information outside of formal motion practice in the hopes of resolving the dispute” while minimizing the burden on the court, said the motion.
Plaintiff homeowners Gary Blum and Lucia Billiot struck an agreement with AT&T, Lumen and Verizon to permit the defendants to conduct “certain usual, routine, or ordinary-course-of-business maintenance” on the telecom cables that are the subject of their litigation, including lead-covered cables, said their joint stipulated motion Friday (docket 6:23-cv-01748) in U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana in Lafayette. The complaint is believed to be one of the first class actions brought by homeowners against the telecom industry for legacy lead-laden cables that reduced their property values (see 2312140001). Blum and Billiot allege that the defendants have left behind an extensive network of lead-covered cables and other associated lead equipment stretching across Louisiana. They further allege that the cables are an unlawful intrusion on private property and are causing all plaintiffs and putative class members “property damage and a risk to human health." The parties acknowledge that the defendants must be able to conduct usual, routine maintenance of their telecom infrastructure and associated equipment, “potentially including any lead-containing infrastructure, during the pendency of this litigation,” said their stipulated motion. If the defendants were to be unable to conduct that routine maintenance, “telecommunications services to the public may be interrupted,” it said. The maintenance activities “shall proceed in the ordinary course without any new or additional documentation or other measures beyond what would typically take place for such activities in the ordinary course,” it said. The defendants will be permitted to conduct business-as-usual activities on any of their telecommunications infrastructure and associated equipment, “including lead-containing telecommunications equipment," on all property in Louisiana, except for the named plaintiffs’ property, without notice to those plaintiffs or members of the putative class, said the motion. Actions taken in the course of conducting such activities “shall proceed in the ordinary course without any new or additional documentation or other measures” required of the defendants, beyond what would typically take place in the defendants’ usual business process, it said.
Kootenai Health failed to comply with industry standards to protect information systems that contain patients’ personally identifiable information (PII) and personal health information (PHI) during an early March data breach, alleged a class action Friday (docket 1:24-cv-00205) in U.S. District Court for Idaho in Boise.
Michael Maffia seeks to stop Fuego Leads and its subsidiary, Health Insurance Alliance, from violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by making telemarketing calls to consumers without consent, including calls to phone numbers listed on the national do not call registry, and to consumers who have expressly requested that the calls stop, said Maffia’s class action Thursday (docket 0:24-cv-60632) in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in Fort Lauderdale. Fuego Leads owns and operates a network of websites that it uses to generate leads for its call center, said the complaint. The company also owns and operates Health Insurance Alliance, which sells medical and dental health plans through licensed agents. “For all intents and purposes, the companies are intimately intertwined,” said the complaint, sharing the same executives, located at the same address in Fort Lauderdale and often listed together on job postings. In job postings for Health Insurance Alliance, Fuego Leads “specifically lists cold calling as a job requirement,” it said. The defendants “lack a sufficient internal do not call system,” causing consumers like plaintiff Maffia “to receive unsolicited telemarketing calls despite having requested that the calls stop,” it said. The Jacksonville, Florida, resident listed his cellphone number on the national DNC registry Dec. 14, yet he received "daily calls" from the defendants throughout February, it said. With each call, Maffia asked for his phone number to be removed from the contact list, but in most cases, the callers “would simply hang up in response,” said the complaint. The unauthorized solicitation calls that Maffia received have harmed him “in the form of annoyance, nuisance, and invasion of privacy,” it said. The calls have occupied his phone line and disturbed the use and enjoyment of his phone, it said. The calls have also caused him “significant mental distress,” it said. He can’t block the calls because the defendants almost always call “using a different phone number, and his stop requests have been disregarded,” it said.
Anthony Kamel hasn’t provided “sufficient factual evidence” to support the assertion that his cellphone number is used for residential purposes, said Albertsons’ memorandum of points and authorities Thursday (docket 8:24-cv-00270) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Santa Ana in support of its motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s Feb. 8 Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action for failure to state a claim. Kamel alleges that Albertsons, “by means contrary” to the TCPA, contacted his cellphone number multiple times with telemarketing text messages using an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) even after he told the supermarket chain to stop contacting him (see 2402090007). But the defendant argues that Kamel’s complaint relies on “conclusory allegations” that his cellphone number is residential, that he’s the cellphone’s account holder and that he’s the regular user of the number, said its memorandum. “Such threadbare allegations lack the necessary factual underpinning to demonstrate the number’s residential use” and defeat Kamel’s residential phone number claim under the TCPA, it said. The plaintiff’s claim is “further undermined” by publicly available information, said the memorandum. The subject number is listed on a publicly accessible website and social media platform as the contact number for Kamel’s jewelry business, “indicating its use for business purposes and inviting public inquiries related to jewelry -- a blatant contradiction that the number is residential,” it said. Kamel’s Telemarketing Sales Rule claim likewise fails because he doesn’t allege he suffered the “requisite amount of damages to state a private right of action,” said the memorandum. The Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, the statute under which the TSR was promulgated, requires that a plaintiff plead at least $50,000 in actual damages to be entitled to a private right of action for violations of the TSR, it said. Kamel’s allegations also “belie an essential element of the claims” that he was contacted using an ATDS as defined under the TCPA, said the memorandum. Under binding 9th Circuit authority, to qualify as an ATDS, equipment “must randomly or sequentially generate telephone numbers to be dialed,” it said. Equipment that "merely dials numbers" obtained in a non-random, non-sequential way, such as when a plaintiff provides his number to a defendant, is not an ATDS, it said. Kamel admits that he received text messages from Albertsons only after he provided his number to an Albertsons cashier, “thus establishing that Albertsons did not contact him using an ATDS,” it said. Even if the court doesn’t dismiss Kamel’s complaint in its entirety, it should dismiss his requests for declaratory and injunctive relief, because he doesn’t allege “any continuing TCPA violations or the threat of future harm or otherwise allege that money damages are an inadequate remedy at law,” it said.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the parties’ request in MacClelland v. Cellco Partnership to continue to hold the case in abeyance for an additional 90 days, said its order Thursday (docket 22-16020). In November, Verizon and the plaintiffs asked that the case be removed from the argument calendar and held in abeyance pending consummation of a settlement in principle with 27 consumers (see 2311120007). The case originated from a November 2021 class action challenging Verizon’s alleged practice of padding consumers’ monthly wireless bills with a secretive “administrative charge” that kept climbing above the flat monthly rates it was advertising.
Sorina Montoya’s fraud dispute against Activision Blizzard and King over $3,000 in in-game payments she made competing in a Candy Crush tournament “must be arbitrated,” ruled U.S. District Judge Robert Payne for Eastern Virginia in Richmond in his memorandum opinion Thursday (docket 3:23-cv-00314).
Future US, publisher of magazines and websites targeting the home and garden, videogame, lifestyle and finance markets, tracks users without their consent when they visit the publications’ websites, alleged a privacy class action Thursday (docket 1:24-cv-02931) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan.