Atlas Medical Management violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by “bombarding” consumers with unsolicited fax ads to promote its business, and did so without consumers' consent, alleged Jeffery Katz’s class action Thursday (docket 3:24-cv-03141) 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 the complaint. Katz of San Francisco seeks an injunction requiring Atlas to cease all unsolicited fax ads, plus an award of statutory damages and treble damages for knowing and willful TCPA violations, it said.
Slingshot Enterprises violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by making telemarketing calls to Leon Weingrad and other putative class members whose numbers were listed on the national do not call registry without their written consent, alleged Weingrad’s class action Thursday (docket 1:24-cv-03736) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Central Islip. An ADT home security vendor, Slingshot also phoned people who had previously asked to no longer receive calls, said his complaint. Weingrad’s phone number had been listed on the national DNC registry for at least a year before he began receiving the calls at issue, it said. The plaintiff has never been a Slingshot customer and never consented to receive Slingshot’s calls, it said. He nevertheless received at least eight solicitation calls from Slingshot since early April, pitching him on an ADT home alarm system, it said. Weingrad spoke to an ADT representative who identified Slingshot as the source of the illegal calls, said the complaint. The calls were unwanted, and they were “nonconsensual encounters,” said the complaint. The plaintiff’s privacy has been “repeatedly violated” by the unwanted telemarketing calls, it said. He and the class have been harmed by Slingshot’s acts because they were “annoyed and harassed,” it said. The calls also occupied their phone lines, storage space and bandwidth, “rendering them unavailable for legitimate communication, including while driving, working, and performing other critical tasks,” it said.
A data breach this month at Ascension Health prevented patients from completing health-related tasks and puts them at risk of future harm, said a negligence class action Thursday (docket 4:24-cv-00724) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Missouri in St. Louis.
Programmatic advertising firm Direct Digital Holdings and three of its executives made false or misleading statements and failed to disclose material facts about the financial impact of a “'cookie-less’ advertising environment,” alleged a securities fraud class action Thursday (docket 4:24-cv-01940) in U.S. District Court for Southern Texas in Houston.
The Freedom Boat Club promotes its recreational boat rentals services at locations throughout the U.S. by engaging in aggressive unsolicited marketing, “harming thousands of consumers in the process,” alleged Jordan Copeland’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Wednesday (docket 3:24-cv-00225) in U.S. District Court for Northern Florida in Pensacola. The membership-based club uses aggressive marketing to push its products and services “without regards to consumers’ rights under the TCPA,” said Copeland’s complaint. The defendant began “bombarding” Copeland with telemarketing text messages to his cellphone in February, and the conduct persisted through the month of April, though the Florida resident’s cellphone number has been listed on the national do not call registry since June 2016, it said. The defendant’s unsolicited text messages caused Copeland “actual harm,” including invasion of his privacy, aggravation, annoyance, intrusion on seclusion, trespass and conversion, said the complaint. The text messages also inconvenienced Copeland and caused disruption to his daily life, it said. Copeland estimates that he has wasted 15-30 seconds reviewing each of the defendant’s unwanted messages, it said. Each time, Copeland had to stop what he was doing to either retrieve his phone or look down at the phone to review the message, it said. He also wasted approximately 15 minutes locating and retaining counsel to stop the defendant’s unwanted calls, it said.
InsureMe markets its insurance services through the use of automated telemarketing calls in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act, alleged Adren Mitchell’s class action Wednesday (docket 3:24-cv-00520) in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida. The recipients of InsureMe’s illegal calls, which include Mitchell and the proposed classes, are entitled to damages under the TCPA and FTSA, said the complaint. Mitchell’s cellphone number has been listed with the national do not call registry since April 2023, yet he received a prerecorded call from InsureMe on April 2, inquiring about his interest in buying health coverage, it said. The Flagler County, Florida, resident has never had any business relationship with InsureMe, nor was he looking to buy insurance coverage, it said. He also has never given his express written consent for InsureMe to place solicitation calls to his cellphone, it said.
Senior officers of Cambium Networks made “materially false” or misleading statements and failed to disclose “material adverse facts” about their business, operations and prospects between May 8, 2023, and Jan. 18, 2024, alleged Benjamin Hamby’s Securities Exchange Act class action Wednesday (docket 1:24-cv-04240) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. Cambrium designs, develops and manufactures wireless broadband and Wi-Fi networking infrastructure solutions. The complaint alleges that the company, its former and current CEOs and its former chief financial officer failed to disclose that the company’s distribution channels had an inventory buildup, that the company and its distributors were reasonably likely to offer aggressive discounts to reduce the high channel inventories and that revenue “would decline sequentially until the excess channel inventory was sold through,” it said. They also failed to disclose that Cambium was likely to incur “significant charges” to write down excess and obsolete inventory, and that as a result, its fiscal 2023 revenue and earnings would be “adversely affected,” it said. The complaint further alleges that the defendants’ positive statements about the company’s business, operations and prospects lacked “a reasonable basis,” it said. As a result of the defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions, and the “precipitous decline” in the market value of Cambium’s stock, Hamby and other class members “have suffered significant losses and damages,” it said. The complaint cites the example of Cambium’s Oct. 4, 2023, announcement that preliminary third-quarter 2023 revenue would fall between $40 million and $45 million, compared with the previous outlook of $62 million to $70 million. The company blamed the shortfall on a decrease in orders and an increase in stock rotations from distributors in the enterprise business, plus pressure from channel inventories, said the complaint. The disclosure sent Cambium shares tumbling 36.2% the next trading day on “unusually heavy trading volume,” it said. The market for Cambium’s securities “was open, well-developed and efficient at all relevant times,” said the complaint. As a result of the defendants’ materially false or misleading statements or failures to disclose, the company’s securities traded at “artificially inflated prices” during the class period, it said. Hamby and other members of the class purchased Cambium’s stock, “relying upon the integrity of the market price” of the company’s securities and market information relating to Cambium, “have been damaged thereby,” it said.
Steven Kern’s class action seeks to reverse “a disturbing trend” whereby real estate agents cold-call consumers without consent, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, said Kern’s complaint Tuesday (docket 2:24-cv-04207) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. Kern alleges that Sasha Rahban, a Los Angeles real estate agent, places calls to consumers using a prerecorded voice message without the consumers’ prior written consent to receive such calls, said his class action. As a result, Los Angeles resident Kern seeks injunctive and monetary relief “for all persons injured by Rahban’s telemarketing calls,” it said. As explained in the FCC’s February 2012 order, the TCPA requires prior express written consent for all autodialed or prerecorded solicitation calls to wireless numbers and residential phone lines, said the complaint. Yet in violation of that rule, Rahban “fails to obtain any express written consent” before placing his prerecorded voice calls to cellphone numbers such as Kern’s, it said. The plaintiff received one such unsolicited call to his cellphone April 26 from Rahban or on Rahban’s behalf, said the complaint. Kern didn’t answer the call, but a prerecorded voicemail was left inquiring whether he was in the market to sell his home, it said. Kern never consented to receiving solicitation calls from the defendant, nor was he looking to sell his home, it said. The unauthorized voicemail that Rahban or someone on his behalf left with Kern harmed the plaintiff “in the form of annoyance, nuisance, and invasion of privacy, and disturbed the use and enjoyment of his phone,” it said.
Weather Group Television discloses consumers’ personally identifiable information (PII) to third parties, alleged a Video Privacy Protection Act class action Tuesday (docket 1:24-cv-11349) in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts.
HomeAdvisor’s business is to connect consumers with various home project services, and it promotes itself through telemarketing text messages placed directly to consumers, often in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, alleged Kimberly Hudson’s class action Monday (docket 1:24-cv-01408) in U.S. District Court for Colorado in Denver. Her case “is about stopping incessant telemarketers” like HomeAdvisor from sending unwanted text messages to the cellphones of Hudson “and likely thousands of other persons,” said the complaint. The Texas resident personally listed her cellphone number on the national do not call registry in October 2009, yet HomeAdvisor began sending her telemarketing text messages in January 2023 that haven’t stopped, it said. The defendant controlled or had the right to control the marketing activities of any potential third party, it said. The company “is not permitted under the law to outsource and contract its way out of liability by directing and benefiting from its agents’ TCPA violations,” it said. If HomeAdvisor directly sent the text messages, it's “directly liable” for any TCPA violations, it said. To the extent any text messages were made by a third party acting on HomeAdvisor’s behalf, the defendant “is vicariously liable for those unlawful text messages,” it said.