Republican Vivek Ramaswamy's presidential campaign committee “embarked on an unsolicited campaign of harassment by text call” using the multimedia message service (MMS) standard, causing Phillip Woods and his proposed class members injuries, “including invasion of their privacy, aggravation, annoyance, intrusion on seclusion, trespass, and conversion,” alleged Woods’ Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Monday (docket 2:23-cv-01958) in U.S. District Court for Arizona in Phoenix. Woods and his class members “have no prior contact, dealings, or relationship” with the committee, Vivek 2024, and never provided it any personal information, including their cellphone numbers, nor did they ever otherwise authorize it to contact them, said the complaint. An Arizona resident, Woods seeks injunctive relief to halt the committee’s “illegal conduct,” plus statutory damages on behalf of himself and his class members, and “any other available legal or equitable remedies” resulting from the committee’s “illegal actions,” it said. Woods alleges the text call he received Aug. 23 via MMS “included an audio/video file that was automatically downloaded to Woods’ phone that used an audible artificial or prerecorded voice to deliver a message,” it said. The MMS text calls occupied electronic memory and storage on Woods’ cellphone and the phones of each of his class members, it said. The MMS text calls also depleted the battery life of those phones and “further interfered with the unencumbered access” by Woods and the class members to their devices.

Plaintiff Porsche Stegall uses her residential cellphone number for personal purposes and registered the number on the national do not call registry, but New York Tribeca Group (NYTG) nonetheless placed repeated telemarketing calls and text messages to her to sell a commercial loan, said Stegall’s memorandum of law Monday (docket 1:23-cv-02862). She filed the memorandum in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago in opposition to NYTG’s Aug. 11 motion to dismiss her amended Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action (see 2308210033). NYTG says Stegall, having been given the opportunity to amend her complaint, still hasn’t sufficiently alleged that a residential phone number is at issue, as her TCPA claims require. Stegall messaged and called NYTG asking it to stop contacting her, but NYTG ignored her requests, said her memorandum. NYTG doesn’t contest that its alleged conduct violated the TCPA, nor does it maintain it had any consent to place telemarketing calls and texts to Stegall, it said. NYTG instead argues Stegall hasn’t plausibly alleged her cellphone is associated with a residential number under the TCPA, and she doesn’t have a private cause of action under the statute, it said: “On both matters, NYTG is wrong.” Since Stegall alleged her cellphone number is on the DNC registry, there’s “a sufficient basis at this stage of the proceedings to apply the presumption that the cellphone is a residential phone number,” it said. Moreover, though NYTG argues there’s no private cause of action under the TCPA, courts in the 7th Circuit “have consistently held just the opposite,” it said. For these reasons, NYTG’s motion to dismiss should be denied, it said.

A consumer’s first amended complaint for Telephone Consumer Protection Act wrongdoing against Integrity Vehicle Group and Vanguard Vehicle Armor should be dismissed for failure to state a claim, said Integrity’s motion to dismiss Monday (docket 4:23-cv-01194) in U.S. District Court for Middle Pennsylvania in Williamsport. Plaintiff Zachary Fridline’s July complaint (see 2307190012) alleges telemarketing agent Vanguard Vehicle Armor placed several calls to Fridline, but it didn't allege Integrity made any calls, said the motion. Fridline alleges Integrity should be held vicariously liable for Vanguard’s alleged illegal marketing, but to demonstrate vicarious liability, plaintiff must allege facts that plausibly demonstrate Integrity controlled and directed the marketing methods used by Vanguard -- or that Integrity’s actions caused Fridline to reasonably believe Integrity authorized those marketing practices, said the motion. He did neither, said Integrity. Fridline alleges that during phone calls, the caller represented to him that Integrity would provide “administrator services” for car warranty services being offered and that Vanguard gave him a sample contract, with Integrity listed as the administrator of the service contract. The allegations don’t establish that Integrity controlled and directed the marketing methods that Vanguard allegedly used, the motion said. Instead, Fridline’s allegations suggest a “possible business relationship between parties,” the motion said.

Plaintiff Radley Bradford, a Houston resident, brought suit Friday against defendant Brident Dental Services to stop it from violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by sending text messages to consumers “after specifically opting out of receiving further phone communications,” said Bradford’s class action (docket 4:23-cv-03460) in U.S. District Court for Southern Texas in Houston. Bradford also seeks injunctive and monetary relief “for all persons injured” by Brident’s conduct, it said. Bradford listed his cellphone number on the national do not call registry in March 2019, said his class action. Brident nevertheless sent him a text message solicitation Jan. 16 from the “shortcode” 86528, it said. When Bradford replied “stop” to opt out of future texts, he “immediately received a confirmation text message that his stop request was received,” and that his phone number would be added to Brident’s internal do not text list, it said. But months later, Brident’s text messaging resumed and persisted, said his complaint. He estimates he received at least 18 text-message solicitations from Brident between July 7 and Sept. 8, it said. The unwanted text-message solicitations harmed Bradford “in the form of annoyance, nuisance, and invasion of privacy, and disturbed the use and enjoyment of his phone,” it said. His class action seeks to stop Brident from violating the TCPA “by failing to maintain adequate policies and procedures for maintaining and honoring do not call requests,” plus an award of statutory damages to the members of his proposed class.

Crystal Strickland voluntarily dismissed without prejudice her Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action claims against Harry & David, said her notice of dismissal Thursday (docket 6:23-cv-01580) in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida in Orlando. Strickland’s Aug. 18 complaint alleged that during the month of June, Harry & David “sent or caused to be sent” multiple promotional telemarketing text messages to Strickland’s cellphone, to a number she had listed on the national do not call registry since May 2017 (see 2308210002).

The Sept. 12 opinion of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan in Flint in Michael Dahdah v. Rocket Mortgage (docket 4:22-cv-11863), in which the court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss a Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint, supports loanDepot’s own Aug. 7 motion to dismiss plaintiff Lee Abrahamian’s first amended TCPA complaint for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) (see 2308080041), said loanDepot’s notice of supplemental authority Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-00728) in U.S. District Court for Arizona in Phoenix. The court in Dahdah found it “difficult to draw the inference” that the calls the plaintiff alleged he received were made “for a solicitation or marketing purpose,” as Daddah's TCPA claim required, said the notice. The court found that the calls identified in the complaint involved no actual communications from Rocket or that Rocket was looking to speak with someone other than Dahdah, it said. To the extent the complaint suggests that Dahdah received some calls where he spoke with Rocket representatives, nothing in the complaint describes the content of such calls, and so the court couldn’t reasonably infer that Rocket made the calls for the purpose of encouraging the purchase of its services, it said. The court found that the threshold of TCPA "plausibility" hadn’t been crossed, it said.

Spectrum inundated plaintiff Joshua Cacho’s cellphone with at least 222 robocalls in the past year, ostensibly to warn him, via prerecorded messages, that his cable equipment was outdated and would need to be replaced, but actually they were to sell him a new mobile plan and an iPhone 14 Pro Max device, alleged Cacho’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Thursday (docket 3:23-cv-00347) in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in El Paso. The complaint takes the unusual step of devoting more than 14 pages to logging all the calls, by specific date and time, that Cacho alleges he received from Spectrum, beginning Sept. 2, 2002, at 5:29 p.m., through to Sept. 1 this year at 5:25 p.m. All the calls that Spectrum placed were to a number listed on the national do not call registry, alleged the complaint. “Each and every call” was a knowing and willful TCPA violation because Cacho had informed Spectrum numerous times to stop calling him, it said. Spectrum caused Cacho “the very harm” that Congress sought to prevent when it enacted the TCPA, it said. His complaint also alleges violations of the Florida Telemarketing Act and the Texas Business and Commerce Code because he lived in Florida when the calls began before he moved to El Paso July 16, where the calls continued.

Americans receive billions of spam text messages every year, and Apptness Media Group, a compendium of digital marketers, “is a major participant in this spam,” alleged plaintiff Cindy Luchinske’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Wednesday (docket 2:23-cv-00267) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington in Spokane. Apptness “bombards unsuspecting consumers” nationally, including Luchinske, “with annoying automated texts attempting to lure consumers to their own websites,” it said. Its campaigns are an effort to collect consumers’ names, addresses, emails, phone numbers and other personal contact information so it can sell “that same information to other companies, as well as solicit products and services on these same websites,” it said. Luchinske’s and her class members’ privacy and phones “have been invaded by relentless automated telemarketing texts from Apptness,” it said. The Stevens County, Washington resident, and her class members, “have tried to eliminate the harassment and invasion of their privacy from unauthorized calls” by listing their numbers on the national do not call registry, “but even that did not work,” it said. Apptness “simply continues to blast these same illegal telemarketing texts while hiding its identity, without caring if consent was obtained,” or if the recipients’ numbers were on the DNC registry, it said.

U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny for Connecticut in New Haven approved plaintiff James Williams’ voluntarily dismissal with prejudice of his Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint against Hallmark Cards, said the judge’s text-only order Wednesday (docket 3:22-cv-01340). Williams’ notice of dismissal Tuesday came more than four months after he first informed the court that he and Hallmark had reached a settlement in the case (see 2305090051). Williams, a Bridgeport, Connecticut, consumer, alleged Hallmark operates “an aggressive telemarketing campaign where it repeatedly sends text messages” to phone numbers listed on the national do not call registry and “over the messaged party’s objections” (see 2210260054).

J.C. Penney violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act when it placed at least 75 debt collection calls to plaintiff John Alford’s cellphone between December 2021 and the present after he told the retailer to stop calling, alleged Alford’s complaint Tuesday (docket 4:23-cv-00813) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Sherman. Alford, a Houstonia, Missouri, resident, also alleges the company violated the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, and is guilty of invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The retailer’s collections efforts “were relentless and unreasonable,” and the “incessant” calls caused Alford “actual harm,” including “aggravation that accompanies unwanted calls, increased risk of personal injury resulting from the distraction caused by the unwanted calls,” and wear and tear on his cellphone, said his complaint. The system the company uses to place calls to Alford “has the capacity to use a random or sequential number generator to determine the order in which to pick phone numbers from a preloaded list of numbers of consumers that are allegedly in default on their payments,” it said. Alford alleges the defendant “knew its collection practices violated the TCPA, yet continued to employ them in order to maximize efficiency and revenue,” said his complaint. Court records list the retailer as the defendant in seven federal TCPA actions, active or closed, since March 2011.