Comcast customer Vince Estevez and his wife experienced identity theft and were victims of financial fraud resulting from cloud computing company Citrix Systems’ Oct. 10 data breach, alleged their class action Friday (docket 2:24-cv-00800) against Citrix and its customer Comcast in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Walmart “sympathizes” with Risa Potters and other fraud victims, but her claims that the retailer should have done more to protect her from a third-party fraudster “are meritless and should be dismissed,” said its memorandum of points and authorities Friday (docket 1:22-cv-0337) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles in support of its motion to dismiss Potters' December fraud class action (see 2312110039).
Defendant Medica Central Insurance and 18 Jane and John Does acting on its behalf violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, alleged Christopher Prosser in a Jan. 24 class action in Jefferson County, Missouri, Circuit Court, removed Thursday (docket 4:24-cv-00276) to U.S. District Court for Eastern Missouri in St. Louis. Medica and its agents use automated systems to make outbound telemarketing calls and text messages to hundreds if not thousands of consumers across the U.S., soliciting consumers to purchase their services and insurance policies, in violation of the TCPA and the Missouri No-Call law, said the complaint. It alleges the defendants contacted numbers on the national do not call registry without their owners’ express written consent. Medica’s calls to a telephone subscriber on the Missouri DNC list is an “unfair practice” because it violates public policy and because it forced Prosser “to incur time and expense without any consideration in return,” the complaint said. Medica’s unlawful conduct “effectively forced” Prosser to listen to its advertising campaign, it said. Prosser personally listed his cellphone number on the national and Missouri DNC lists in February 2022, yet he received more than 18 telemarketing calls and text messages from Medica or its agents since Sept. 14, alleged his complaint. All the illegal telemarketing calls “were condoned, encouraged, enticed and ratified” by Medica and its agents, employees and vendors, said the complaint. The Missouri resident’s privacy and right to seclusion “has been grossly, deliberately, and repeatedly violated” by the illegal telemarketing calls, it said. He was “severely annoyed, harassed and humiliated by myriad telemarketers when he instructed them to stop calling his phone,” it said. Medica and its agents placed numerous calls “with one or more predictive dialers,” it said. Predictive dialers are capable of storing, producing and dialing any phone number, and they’re capable of storing, producing and dialing numbers “using a random or sequential number generator,” it said. No human manually entered Prosser’s cellphone number when Medica or its agents made the alleged calls, it said. The predictive dialer electronically dialed Prosser’s number “in an automated fashion,” thus constituting an automatic telephone dialing system, in violation of the TCPA, it said. The TCPA allows for treble damages of up to $1,500 for each knowing and willful violation, but the Missouri DNC call statute ratchets that up to $5,000.
Robert Doyle voluntarily dismissed without prejudice his Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action claims against Resorts Condominium International (RCI), said his notice Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-23237) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark. In its “overzealous attempt” to market its timeshare services, RCI knowingly and willfully made, and continues to make, unsolicited telemarketing phone calls, alleged Doyle’s Dec. 19 complaint (see 2312200004).
Arthur Cochran intends to oppose the Dec. 13 motion of Boost Health Insurance to dismiss Cochran’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action (see 2312140005) in which it claims that it didn’t “purposefully avail itself of Florida” when the vendor it hired, Work Business Solutions, made telemarketing calls to Cochran and other individuals into Florida and to Florida area codes, said Cochran’s motion to compel discovery Thursday (docket 4:23-cv-00473) in U.S. District Court for Northern Florida in Tallahassee. In opposing the motion to dismiss, Cochran plans to demonstrate that Boost Health was aware that its vendor was contacting Florida area codes with its telemarketing calls, said his motion. Cochran needs discovery “to learn the extent of that conduct,” but Boost Health “has refused to produce the calling data that evidences how frequently” its vendor was contacting Florida area codes, it said. Boost Health has rejected Cochran’s discovery requests on grounds that the information he seeks isn’t relevant “to the claims and defenses of the parties and is not proportionate to the needs of the case,” said Cochran’s motion. Boost Health also argues that the discovery request “lacks reasonable temporal limitations and predates the time period” in which Cochran alleges to have received contact on behalf of Boost Health, it said. A defendant whose agent makes “tortious calls” to a Florida resident is subject to personal jurisdiction in the Northern District of Florida, it said. Courts evaluating personal jurisdiction in TCPA cases have regularly applied the “effects test” from the 1984 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Calder v. Jones “to evaluate whether a defendant purposefully availed himself of the privileges of doing business within the forum,” it said. Through his discovery request, Cochran is seeking documents and information reflecting that Boost Health was aware that its vendor was calling Florida telemarketing numbers, it said. Such information has been compelled or evaluated by courts to consider the issue, it said. The information he seeks about calls to Florida as part of the same campaign resulting in calls to Cochran is “critical” to responding to Boost Health’s motion to dismiss, “as other courts have relied on similar information in denying motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction in TCPA cases,” it said.
Since an April data breach at Emmanuel College in Boston, Sopiya Shrestha has experienced an uptick in spam calls concerning fraudulent communications, said her negligence class action Thursday (docket 1:24-cv-10434) against the school's trustees in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts in Boston.
Comcast used “deficient data security practices” by relying on Citrix’s “flawed software applications” that resulted in a “massive and preventable” October data breach, alleged a fraud class action Thursday (docket 2:24-cv-00793) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
A Feb. 16 motion for injunction by the plaintiffs in three nearly identical copyright class actions that were consolidated Nov. 9 in In Re: OpenAI ChatGPT Litigation requests “extraordinary and drastic relief,” said defendant OpenAI in its opposition to the motion Thursday (docket 3:23-cv-03223) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.
Carlos Delgadillo asked U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds for Eastern Michigan in Detroit to withdraw her Feb. 14 show cause order, said his response Wednesday (docket 2:24-cv-10039). The show cause order directed the plaintiff to explain why his Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action against FCA US shouldn’t be dismissed for failure to prosecute (see 2402150004). But Delgadillo responded that the court entered an order Jan. 29 extending the time for FCA to respond to the complaint to March 15. Delgadillo alleges that FCA violates the TCPA by placing prerecorded calls without consent to a group of individuals for whom the message isn't applicable and who requested not to receive the calls (see 2401090001). While calls designed to notify consumers about airbag recalls for their Chrysler cars are important, FCA is calling "a whole host of individuals who never owned a car that the recall is relevant to," including Delgadillo, he alleges.
Omaha resident MaKenzie Lazo seeks to stop a Toyota dealership in Irving, Texas, 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 her class action Wednesday (docket 3:24-cv-00411) in U.S. District Court for Northern Texas in Dallas. Village Pointe Toyota also lacks a “sufficient” internal do not call system, causing consumers like Lazo “to receive unsolicited telemarketing calls despite having requested that the calls stop,” said her complaint. Lazo listed her cellphone number on the national DNC registry in October 2021, yet her complaint logs 76 unsolicited calls she received between June 27 and Jan. 8. The calls persisted even after she personally phoned the dealership multiple times asking that the calls stop, said the complaint. Lazo has owned her cellphone number for about 10 years and has never used it for business purposes or advertised it as a business number, said the complaint. She also has never done business with or inquired about a vehicle for sale at Village Pointe Toyota, it said. The unauthorized solicitation calls have harmed Lazo “in the form of annoyance, nuisance, and invasion of privacy,” it said. The calls also have occupied her phone line and disturbed the use and enjoyment of her phone, it said.