Plaintiff Fails to Adequately Plead an ‘Agency Relationship,’ Says LendingTree

U.S. District Court for Central California in Santa Ana. Sapan alleges that LendingTree made multiple calls to him in California using LendingTree’s agents or persons hired on its behalf to initiate the call before LendingTree direct employees come on the line. But Sapan’s allegations are “significantly less substantial” than those at issue in previous case law when the plaintiffs “pled the identities of the alleged callers with certainty,” said the reply. Here, Sapan simply doesn’t know who called him, and neither his amended complaint nor the opposition “fill that informational gap,” it said. Sapan’s amended complaint “fails to articulate a single agency theory,” and it fails “to supply details sufficient to elevate his claim above speculation,” it said. Considering that Sapan “had a full and fair opportunity to conduct discovery on this issue,” one must wonder why he didn’t allege the existence of any contracts or communications between LendingTree and its alleged agents, it said. “Under these circumstances, the absence of such allegations is damning,” it said. Sapan alleges that to the extent LendingTree uses any agents to make calls, LendingTree knew or reasonably should have known that its agents were making the illegal calls. But that allegation “is problematic for several reasons,” said LendingTree’s reply. What LendingTree knew or reasonably should have known “has no bearing on the existence of apparent authority,” it said. A party also doesn’t sufficiently allege a theory of liability “merely by enclosing it in parentheses in a paragraph of the complaint where that theory is otherwise out of place,” it said. Sapan must allege some representation by LendingTree to Sapan “to adequately plead apparent authority,” it said. The amended complaint “contains no such allegations,” it said. For that reason alone, Sapan’s “argument on this point fails,” it said.