Malwarebytes and its agents, acting as a "common enterprise," knowingly and willfully engage in unsolicited text message marketing to consumers, alleged a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Wednesday (docket 1:24-cv-01039) in U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana. Malwarebytes and its agents repeatedly violated the TCPA by sending automated text messages to the plaintiffs and the proposed class without prior express written consent, said the complaint. They also sent telemarketing text messages to Thomas Roehrman and Annamarie Stapinski and the class members while their phone numbers were listed on the national do not call registry, it said. The Hendricks County, Indiana, plaintiffs seek an award of statutory damages for themselves and the class, plus injunctive relief ending Malwarebytes’ unlawful conduct, which has resulted in intrusion into the plaintiffs’ and the class members’ “peace and quiet in a realm that is private and personal” to them, it said. The complaint identifies Wewe Media Group, a Singapore-based marketing network, as a nonparty.
Office Depot spy trackers capture sensitive information of subscribers to the company's email list, including when they open and read messages, their location, IP address and to whom emails are forwarded, alleged a privacy class action Tuesday (docket 2:24-cv-01463) in U.S. District Court for Arizona in Phoenix.
Despite assurances from T-Mobile that it had implemented security measures to prevent additional SIM swaps of Abhishek Gurnani's wireless phone number, the carrier “did nothing to prevent future attacks,” alleged Gurnani's class action Tuesday (docket 1:24-cv-05088) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago.
IGN Entertainment integrates at least one application programming interface (API) that lets companies open their application data and functionality to external third-party developers and business partners, alleged a Video Privacy Protection Act class action Tuesday (docket 1:24-cv-11579) in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts in Boston.
Verizon made a “profit-driven decision” to expose thousands of utility workers to a “lethal toxin” due to its refusal to clean up its “obsolete lead cable network,” said plaintiffs Greg Bostard and Tony Rockhill in their opposition Monday (docket 1:23-cv-08564) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey to Verizon’s April 18 motion to dismiss their second amended complaint (see 2404190011). Bostard’s original Aug. 23 class action alleged that his “direct and regular exposure” to Verizon’s toxic lead cables during his long career as a Comcast utility worker caused him “a present injury” that increases the risk he will develop more “catastrophic health effects” (see 2308240005). He amended his complaint Jan. 12 to assert that he’s not seeking personal injury damages, only relief for the “present economic injury” he suffers by having to pay for his own lead-poisoning tests (see 2401160001). Bostard’s second amended complaint was filed March 18, “solely for the purpose” of adding 16-year Altice veteran Rockhill as an additional plaintiff (see 2403190036). Unless their suit is successful, Verizon’s lead cables “will continue to put thousands of utility workers’ health at risk,” said the Bostard-Rockhill opposition. Utility workers “face a choice between paying out of pocket for medical testing to understand the extent to which they have been poisoned or taking a risk on their health,” it said: “Not only that, but unless this suit is successful, utility workers face a choice between continuing to be poisoned or quitting their jobs.” New Jersey law doesn’t force the “victims of corporate misconduct” into that choice, said the opposition. New Jersey instead holds polluters accountable when their pollution forces people to seek medical monitoring by allowing post-injury, pre-symptom recovery in toxic tort litigation for reasonable medical surveillance costs, it said. Both New Jersey and federal law require polluters “to abate dangerous environmental conditions they create,” it said. To avoid paying for the dangers it created, Verizon asks this court “to rewrite New Jersey and federal law to disallow medical monitoring and abatement suits,” it said. Verizon argues for an array of rules -- “some untested, some discredited, but none meritorious” -- that would preclude “virtually all medical monitoring class action cases,” it said. But neither the 3rd Circuit nor the New Jersey Supreme Court “has ever adopted Verizon’s extreme positions,” it said. This court “should not do so here,” it said.
A vacation membership club used its call centers to place telemarketing calls to promote goods and services to numbers that were on the national do not call registry, and did so without recipients’ prior express written consent, a plaintiff alleged in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Monday (docket 1:24-cv-01022) in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida. Because Club Esprit's calls were transmitted using technology capable of generating thousands of similar calls daily, Kenneth Johansen brought his action on behalf of a proposed nationwide class of other persons who were sent the same illegal telemarketing calls, the complaint said. Johansen is not a Club Esprit customer and never consented to receive calls from the defendant, it said. But he received at least three Club Esprit telemarketing calls between Feb. 23 and June 11, it said. Johansen specifically requested to no longer receive calls after the defendant contacted him Feb. 23, but he still received calls, it said. Johansen and the other call recipients claim these calls harmed them, it said. For instance, they were temporarily deprived of legitimate use of their phones because the phone line was tied up, and their privacy was improperly invaded, it said. The calls also injured Johansen “because they were frustrating, obnoxious, annoying, were a nuisance and disturbed the solitude” of the plaintiff and the class, it said.
Nationwide lender Premium Capital Funding promotes its services by engaging in unsolicited telemarketing, “harming thousands of consumers in the process,” alleged Stephanie Brown’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Monday (docket 8:24-cv-01469) in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida. Brown seeks damages and injunctive relief to halt Premium Capital’s “illegal conduct,” which has resulted in the invasion of privacy, harassment, aggravation and “disruption” of the daily lives of thousands of individuals, said her complaint. The Lakeland, Florida, plaintiff also seeks statutory damages on behalf of herself and members of the class, plus “any other available legal or equitable remedies,” it said. Any of Premium Capital’s violations were knowing, willful and intentional, making Brown and the class eligible for treble damages under the TCPA, it said. Brown personally listed her cellphone number with the national do not call registry in June 2009, and she has since received an email from the registry confirming her number’s appearance on the listing, said the complaint. Yet Premium Capital sent at least four unsolicited text messages to her number, addressed to a person unknown to her and named Douglas, it said. The plaintiff, through counsel, received an email confirmation from Premium Capital asserting that the text messages she received were a “mistake,” due to the company texting to an “incorrect number,” it said. Premium Capital thus acknowledged that it didn’t have consent to send the “violating text messages,” it said. At no point in time did Brown provide Premium Capital with her express written consent to be contacted, in violation of the TCPA’s Section 227(a)(5), it said. Premium Capital “may not allege consent through a third-party lead generator, as the FCC has prohibited such actions,” it said.
RFR Capital illegally sent telemarketing text messages to numbers on the national do not call registry to promote its business loan services and did so without the recipients’ consent, alleged a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Monday (docket 2:24-cv-02636) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. RFR “directed its illegal calling conduct into Pennsylvania by sending its text message spam to Pennsylvania area codes,” said Leon Weingrad’s complaint. The Pennsylvania resident’s cellphone number was listed on the national DNC registry for more than a year before he began receiving RFR’s text messages, it said. The number is a residential phone line because it’s assigned to a cellphone exchange service for consumers and isn’t assigned to a telephone exchange service for businesses, it said. The plaintiff doesn’t use the number for business reasons and the number isn’t registered in the name of or associated with a business, it said. Weingrad “never consented or requested in any way” to receive the text messages from RFR, nor did he ever do business with the company, it said. He nevertheless received at least nine automated text messages from the defendant’s number between Jan. 16 and May 28 as part of a telemarketing campaign, it said. The messages “continued relentlessly with substantially similar content,” said the complaint. The messages all included a link to apply at RFR’s website, and some also included a link to schedule a meeting with a company employee, it said. Weingrad and all members of the class have been harmed by RFR’s acts “because their privacy has been violated and they were annoyed and harassed,” it said. The calls also occupied their phone lines, storage space and bandwidth, “rendering them unavailable for legitimate communication,” it said.
Dominic Fiacco voluntarily dismissed without prejudice his negligence class action against the University of Rochester (docket 1:24-cv-10777), said Fiacco's notice Tuesday (docket 3083) in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts. The action, part of In Re: MOVEIt Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, involved a May 2023 data breach at file transfer software company Progress Software. A University of Rochester student, the plaintiff alleged the college failed to safeguard and protect his and class members' confidential information under its control, including Social Security numbers and personal information "that can be used to perpetrate identity theft." In the event of future recovery in the action, “nothing in the foregoing shall prevent Dismissing Plaintiff from submitting a claim as an absent class member and/or from participating in any settlement or judgement as an absent class member,” said the notice.
Amazon blitzed the federal courts Friday with 15 petitions in 13 jurisdictions to compel the claims of multiple local delivery drivers to binding arbitration. The drivers provided their services as independent contractors, but they later joined a putative class action against Amazon seeking to change their status to employees, said Amazon’s petition against respondents Cinthia Yarleque and Charles Baker in U.S. District Court for New Jersey (docket 2:24-cv-07046), typifying the others. The respondents have refused to resolve their disputes by binding arbitration, “despite their agreements to do so,” it said. The respondents are individual entrepreneurs who enrolled in the Amazon Flex program to provide New Jersey-area delivery services, it said. Yarleque and Baker downloaded the Amazon Flex app and accepted the independent contractor terms of service when enrolling in the program that included the arbitration provision, it said. The petitions emanate from an October 2016 class action, Rittmann et al. v. Amazon.com (docket 2:16-cv-1554), in which the plaintiffs sought to change the classification of Amazon Flex delivery drivers to employees. Following Amazon’s initial motion to compel arbitration and the supplemental briefing in support of that motion, the number of plaintiffs in the case “has swelled to more than 100 through successive amended complaints, consolidations, and opt-in notices,” said the petition. The Rittmann district court litigation has been stayed a total of 2,343 days, it said: “Despite its age, it is at an early stage of the proceedings.” Triggering Friday’s blitz of petitions was a May 14 scheduling order, allowing Amazon to renew its motion to compel arbitration at an undetermined future date, it said. The question of whether the plaintiffs in Rittmann must arbitrate their claims “remains unresolved,” the petition said.