Plaintiff Can’t Connect ‘Factual Dots’ Between Ramaswamy and Phone Vendors: Reply

phone, said the defendant’s reply Monday (docket 2:24-cv-00281) in U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio in Columbus in support of his motion to dismiss. Grant’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint alleges Ramaswamy’s campaign, Vivek 2024, which was suspended Jan. 15, placed calls with the candidate's prerecorded voice to consumers’ cellphones to promote the candidate’s telephonic town hall events. But the plaintiff’s inability “to connect the factual dots” between Ramaswamy and the campaign’s third-party phone vendors isn’t surprising, said Ramaswamy’s reply. It’s a function of his failing to bring suit against the correct party, the Vivek 2024 campaign, it said. Grant consequently “is forced to lean on conclusory allegations” to prop up his complaint, it said. Unfortunately for Grant, “simply including conclusory allegations you hope to be true, without more, is insufficient,” it said. The plaintiff also fails to rebut Ramswamy’s reliance on the regulatory exemptions to the TCPA, it said. Grant specifically contends that the exemption containing the phrase “residential phone line” can’t possibly apply to cellphones, “despite failing to cite a single case” in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “that says as much,” it said. Put differently, Grant lobbies for a “hard bifurcation” between residential phone numbers and cellphone numbers. But in light of the FCC’s “nuanced understanding” of privacy concerns, it’s, at best, “an open question as to whether the residential exemption also applies” to cellphones when those numbers are used primarily for personal, not commercial purposes, it said. Those same privacy concerns are the very basis for the FCC’s willingness to extend the do not call registry for residential lines to wireless phone lines, it said. “The situation is no different here,” said the reply. “The calls at issue are, therefore, exempted under the TCPA,” it said.