Plaintiff Amy Faler and defendant Dailylook have reached a settlement on Faler’s individual Telephone Consumer Protection Act claim, said their joint notice of settlement Friday (docket 1:23-cv-00647) in U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio in Cincinnati. The parties anticipate filing a dismissal with prejudice on Faler’s individual claim within 30 days and without prejudice on any claims of the proposed class, said the notice. Dailylook, a personal styling subscription service, engages in unsolicited text-messaging to promote its goods and services, and continues to text consumers after they opt out of its solicitations, alleged Faler’s Oct. 5 TCPA class action (see 2310060002).

BMW of West St. Louis removed to U.S. District Court for Eastern Missouri in St. Louis Friday a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action (docket 4:23-cv-01577) filed Nov. 8 in St. Louis County Circuit Court in which plaintiff Daniel Human alleges the dealership made unsolicited telemarketing robocalls to his cellphone, a number listed on the national and Missouri do not call registries. BMW has caused Human and his class members “to suffer concrete injuries as a result of placing unwanted telephonic sales calls to their phones,” said the complaint. Human seeks damages and an injunction requiring BMW “to cease all unsolicited telephone calling activities,” plus an award of statutory damages and treble damages, it said. Human estimates he received at least four telemarketing calls from the dealership or its agents made with one or more “predictive dialers,” it said. Predictive dialers constitute automatic telephone dialing systems that are unlawful under the TCPA, said the complaint. They’re capable of storing, producing, and dialing any phone number “using a random or sequential number generator,” it said. Human sent BMW a “certified formal demand letter” Aug. 14 insisting that the calls stop, said the complaint. But the dealership hasn’t responded, nor has it provided a copy of its internal do not call policy, as Human had requested, it said.

Plaintiff Elizabeth Irizarry and defendant Kohl’s have settled all Telephone Consumer Protection Act claims between them, and “are in the process of completing the final closing documents and filing the dismissal,” said Irizarry’s notice of settlement Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-01324) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Wisconsin in Milwaukee. The parties anticipate the process will take no more than 60 days, and ask that the court “retain jurisdiction for any matters related to completing and/or enforcing the settlement,” said the notice. Irizarry’s Oct. 6 complaint alleged Kohl’s inundated her with daily prerecorded debt collection calls to her cellphone after she experienced financial hardship, and that it ignored her demands that the calls stop (see 2310080001).

Plaintiff Horace Witt estimates receiving nearly five dozen prerecorded or automated calls and voicemails on his cellphone from the Buffalo City School District during 2021 and 2022, even though he had no children attending Buffalo schools, alleged his Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint Thursday (docket 1:23-cv-01269) in U.S. District Court for Western New York in Buffalo. The calls and voicemails would advise Witt about various school matters, including PTA meetings and agendas, school calendar reminders, school closures and openings, grab and go meal service and tutoring opportunities, said the complaint. Witt doesn’t allege that the calls and voicemails he received were for telemarketing purposes. The calls and voicemails persisted despite Witt’s multiple requests that they stop, said the complaint.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer for Northern California in San Francisco signed an order Thursday (docket 3:23-cv-00005) consolidating two Telephone Consumer Protection Act class actions against Insurance Supermarket. The parties agreed in a Dec. 5 joint stipulation that the two class actions “involve common questions of law and fact, and assert substantially similar claims” against Insurance Supermarket, “such that consolidation would result in a substantial savings of judicial effort.” The plaintiffs’ consolidated complaint is due within 14 days. They allege that Insurance Supermarket hounded them with unlawful telemarketing calls without their consent, including those made to numbers listed on the national do not call registry.

Aragon Advertising responded forcefully Wednesday to plaintiff Nelson Estrada’s Sept. 12 Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action in which he alleged that Aragon inundated his cellphone with 37 “unauthorized and illegal” solicitation calls, to a number listed on the national do not call registry since June 2008. Aragon maintains it’s not liable under the TCPA because all the calls it made to Estrada’s cellphone were with his “prior express consent,” said Aragon’s counterclaims (docket 4:23-cv-03407) in U.S. District Court for Southern Texas in Houston. Estrada “is a budding professional TCPA litigant who shops lawsuits around different area law firms,” said Aragon’s counterclaims. Estrada visited Aragon’s website in November 2022, and the contact information he provided included the name Sam Smith, but the phone number he gave “was unmistakably Estrada’s,” they said. “In other words, amidst the seemingly fake name of ‘Sam Smith,’ the essential information that Estrada needed to get his ‘unwanted calls’ -- his phone number -- was accurately provided,” they said. When Aragon did phone Estrada, he would “pretend to be interested in Aragon’s products and services, thereby driving up the call count that he would use to extract a higher settlement payout for his manufactured TCPA claim,” said the counterclaims. “Estrada knew that he opted in to receive phone calls, and that businesses like Aragon would rely on that TCPA-compliant opt-in to place phone calls to his number,” they said. “Instead of correcting that manufactured opt-in, Estrada intentionally failed to simply ask Aragon to stop the phone calls he was receiving in order to drive up his settlement demand,” they said. When the “extorted settlement” didn't materialize, “he filed suit falsely claiming that the phone calls were unsolicited in his broader campaign to collect money under false pretenses via his TCPA claims,” the counterclaims said. “Aragon has now been required to engage attorneys and incur costs associated with defending against Estrada’s spurious and fraudulently induced lawsuit,” they said. Aragon’s counterclaims accuse Estrada of engaging in common law fraud. It seeks an award of actual damages, exemplary damages, court costs, attorneys’ fees and “all other relief, at law and equity, to which Aragon may show itself entitled.”

Law Enforcement for a Safer America raises money to support legislation to protect law enforcement professionals across the U.S. by calling thousands of phones using an artificial or prerecorded voice message, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, alleged plaintiff Robert Ngo’s class action Wednesday (docket 4:23-cv-06316) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland. The political action committee does so without first having requested or obtained consent to make those calls, in violation of the TCPA, said Ngo’s complaint. The Hayward, California, resident estimates he received nearly two dozen solicitation calls from the PAC in the month of October, including eight calls on a single day, Oct. 4, said the complaint. The calls violated Ngo’s statutory rights and caused “actual and statutory damages,” including annoyance, intrusion on privacy and seclusion and wasted cellphone battery life, it said.

TomoCredit, an online loan company that specializes in issuing loans to consumers with low credit scores, hires third-party vendors and agents to place outbound marketing calls to consumers on its behalf, and is liable for their acts under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, alleged plaintiff Radley Bradford’s class action Tuesday (docket 4:23-cv-04561) in U.S. District Court for Southern Texas in Houston. TomoCredit sent an unsolicited promotional text message to Bradford's cellphone Oct. 27, advertising that he was preapproved for a $30,000 loan with no credit checks, said the Houston resident's complaint. He immediately responded “stop,” per the instructions in the text message, and the next day he received a text confirmation that he wouldn’t receive any more messages, it said. Yet a day later, he again received the identical text message advertising the $30,000 loan offer, it said. TomoCredit sent Bradford’s cellphone seven more text messages through the end of November, it said. TomoCredit’s unlawful telemarketing practices have caused Bradford damages by invading his privacy and causing him decreased productivity, aggravation and frustration, it said. Fed up with TomoCredit’s “invasive telemarketing practices,” Bradford hired counsel to file his class action to “vindicate his rights” under the TCPA, the complaint said.

Retailer Shoe Carnival “routinely violates” the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by delivering telemarketing text messages to residential or cellphone numbers listed on the national do not call registry, and does so without the recipients’ prior express invitation or permission, alleged plaintiff Timothy Moore’s class action Tuesday (docket 3:23-cv-00215) in U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana in Evansville. The Greenwood, Mississippi, resident listed his cellphone number on the DNC registry in August 2018, yet he received text messages from a 727375 short code phone number advertising Shoe Carnival’s product offerings starting in August 2023 and continuing through to the present, alleged his complaint. Moore isn’t a current or former Shoe Carnival customer, and doesn’t believe he has ever visited a Shoe Carnival store or website, it said. He estimates he received at least five Shoe Carnival telemarketing text messages this year, it said.

A clerk’s entry of default was entered Monday in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in West Palm Beach against Northwell Health Labs and its three co-defendants for failing to file a responsive pleading by the Nov. 17 deadline to Kawa Orthodontics’ Oct. 26 Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action. The Northwell defendants were properly served Oct. 27, said Kawa’s motion for the entry of default (docket 9:23-cv-81424). Kawa filed its TCPA lawsuit to challenge the practice of the four Northwell subsidiaries of sending unsolicited fax advertisements promoting their lab services to unhappy recipients (see 2310270005).