Tracy Hyman voluntarily dismissed without prejudice his Video Privacy Protection Act class action claims against Sinclair without prejudice, said his notice of dismissal Wednesday (docket 2:24-cv-02168) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. Hyman alleged in his March 18 complaint that Sinclair, operator of TennisChannel.com, uses a wide array of “extremely sophisticated” tracking technology that collects its subscribers’ personally identifiable information and viewing history, and “knowingly discloses” that to third-party analytics and advertising companies (see 2403190001).
Summit Health combines patients’ searches for medical information with their protected health information (PHI) and personally identifiable information (PII) and sells it to advertisers without their permission, alleged a privacy class action Wednesday (docket 2:24-cv-06972) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark. The suit also names Meta, Google, PubMatic, Microsoft and Magnite.
Attorneys for plaintiff Thomas Gebka and defendant State Farm conferred via videoconference May 30 about all issues Gebka raised in a May 20 motion to compel discovery (see 2405210004), the parties’ joint status report said Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-05546) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. Gebka’s motion seeks production of all records and notes for all calls that State Farm or any State Farm agency made from Oct. 10, 2018, to the present. Gebka’s October 2022 Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action alleges that State Farm “engaged in a national telemarketing campaign to promote its insurance via unsolicited calls to persons who had no prior relationship” with the insurer (see 2210110009). During the May 30 conferral, State Farm claimed for the first time that experts within the company “advised they may not be able to export the data for the call records and notes from the database tables in which State Farm stores it without crashing the system,” Gebka’s position statement in the joint status report said. However, Gebka “contends" it "is routine to export the data,” and proposed State Farm allow Gebka’s expert to do so himself, “which counsel for State Farm stated he knows State Farm will not allow,” it said. Gebka contends that it’s clear State Farm “is not conferring in good faith but is instead attempting to weaponize” the court’s standing order to delay, it said. State Farm’s “impression” is that Gebka “would like to speed through the conferral process and then renew his motion to compel,” said its position statement in the joint status report. During the May 30 conferral, Gebka “rejected all of State Farm’s proposals,” it said. The scope of Gebka’s discovery demands is “enormous” and “contrary” to the court’s Nov. 2023 order cautioning that the plaintiff’s discovery requests need to be “appropriately narrowed” at this stage of the case, the report said. State Farm has produced reports showing that since 2018 -- the beginning of Gebka’s alleged class period -- internet lead vendors EverQuote, ZipQuote and QuoteWizard have sold more than 40 million leads to more than 12,000 State Farm agents, it said. From additional reports that State Farm has produced, “it can be estimated” that there are more than a billion call records for those 12,000 agents, it said. State Farm contends that Gebka has now walked back his earlier positions and is demanding “even broader discovery,” it said. Moreover, it assumes Gebka is demanding such broad information “to engage in a fishing expedition for an alternative theory,” it said.
Shoes for Crews, a shoe retailer and manufacturer, promotes its products by engaging in aggressive unsolicited marketing, “harming thousands of consumers in the process,” alleged Micah DeClerk’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Tuesday (docket 9:24-cv-80732) in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida. Shoes for Crews uses “aggressive marketing to push its products without regards to consumers’ rights under the TCPA," said DeClerk’s complaint. The Pulaski County, Arkansas, resident seeks injunctive relief to halt the defendant’s illegal conduct, “which has resulted in the invasion of privacy, harassment, aggravation, and disruption of the daily life of thousands of individuals,” it said. She also seeks statutory damages on behalf of herself and members of the class, “and any other available legal or equitable remedies,” it said. In late 2023, Shoes for Crews began “bombarding” DeClerk with telemarketing text messages to her cellphone number, though the plaintiff personally listed her number on the national do not call registry in September, said the complaint. At no point in time did DeClerk provide Shoes for Crews with her express written consent to be contacted, it said. The plaintiff also has no existing business relationship with the defendant, it said. The defendant’s unsolicited text messages caused DeClerk “actual harm,” said the complaint. The defendant’s text messages also inconvenienced her and caused disruption to her daily life, it said. DeClerk estimates that she has wasted 15-30 seconds reviewing each of the defendant’s unwanted messages, it said. Each time, DeClerk had to stop what she was doing to either retrieve her phone or look down at the phone to review the message, it said.
Despite Dell's assurances that a data breach of its systems doesn’t pose “significant risk” to those affected because of “limited information impacted,” the breach appears to have been “substantially broader,” alleged a negligence class action Tuesday (docket 1:24-cv-00647) in U.S. District Court for Western Texas.
Oak Street Health operates primary care centers serving Medicare-eligible patients, and one of its strategies for luring new patients is telemarketing via “unsolicited cold calls,” alleged Kimberly Starling’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Monday (docket 1:24-cv-04782) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. Because Medicare is generally reserved to individuals 65 and older, Oak Street “targets one of America’s most vulnerable populations -- its senior citizens,” said the Southlake, Texas, resident’s complaint. Many of these calls are made to individuals who listed their phone numbers on the national do not call registry because they didn’t want to receive “these types of telemarketing calls,” it said. The plaintiff listed her residential phone number on the national DNC registry in May 2021, yet she began receiving Oak Street’s telemarketing cold calls in October 2023, said her complaint. Despite Starling’s demand that Oak Street stop phoning her, she received multiple more calls from the company, including two calls Jan. 29 that were roughly 90 minutes apart, it said. Upon information and belief, the defendant uses telemarketing “fronters” to cold-call individuals and identify potential Medicare members eligible for its services as a part of its advertising efforts, it said. The plaintiff didn’t provide “prior express invitation or permission or consent” for Oak Street’s calls, it said. The company’s TCPA violations were negligent, or alternatively, they were willful and knowing, in which case she seeks treble damages of $1,500 for each infraction, it said. Starling and the class members were damaged by the violations because their privacy was “improperly invaded,” and Oak Street’s calls “temporarily seized and trespassed upon the use of their phones and phone lines,” it said.
IRobot’s representations to investors about the probability of regulatory approval of its purchase by Amazon and the “adequacy” of the company’s internal controls “were far from reality,” alleged a Securities Exchange Act class action Saturday (docket 1:24-cv-11498) in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts in Boston.
Information provided to investors by Roblox and four executives in November included “false” statements related to revenue guidance for Q1 2024 and the full fiscal year, alleged a Securities Exchange Act class action (docket 3:24-cv-03484) Monday in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. The individual defendants are CEO David Baszucki, Chief Financial Officer Michael Guthrie, Chief Product Officer Manuel Bronstein and Chief Partnerships Officer Christina Wootton.
Frontier customers are at a “significant risk of identity theft” and other financial harm as a result of an April 13 data breach of the telecom company’s computer systems, alleged a negligence class action Monday (docket 3:24-cv-01418) in U.S. District Court for Northern Texas in Dallas.
SiriusXM “routinely violates” the Telephone Consumer Protection Act when it uses an artificial or prerecorded voice to place nonemergency calls to cellphone numbers without the recipients’ prior express consent, Micah Scott’s class action Friday (docket 5:24-cv-00737) in U.S. District Court for Northern Alabama alleged. The Huntsville, Alabama, resident alleges the defendant phoned him at least five times to collect a debt on a newly renewed subscription, though he never had a business relationship with the company, nor was he a SiriusXM subscriber, the complaint said. Scott “suffered actual harm as a result of the subject artificial or prerecorded voice messages in that he suffered an invasion of privacy, an intrusion into his life, and a private nuisance,” his complaint said.