U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone for Western Texas in El Paso granted plaintiff Mabel Arredondo's motion to dismiss with prejudice her Telephone Consumer Protection Act claims against loanDepot, said Cardone’s signed order Wednesday (docket 3:22-cv-00374). Arredondo’s Oct. 20 complaint alleged loanDepot violated the TCPA when it inundated her personal cellphone with at least 18 unauthorized automated text messages between July and October (see 2210250045).

The U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego vacated all pending dates in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act suit against Wyndham Vacation Ownership before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Berg, said Berg’s Wednesday order (docket 3:23-cv-00342) confirming settlement. Any matters scheduled before the district judge will remain in effect pending notice from that court. Plaintiff Mariana Munoz filed a notice June 7 saying she intended to file a request for dismissal with prejudice within 60 days; parties are ordered to file their joint motion to dismiss the case no later than Aug. 9. Defendant Wyndham argued in its May reply to the complaint that award of statutory or punitive damages to plaintiff Mariana Munoz would be “grossly disproportionate" to any injury she sustained (see 2305160041. Munoz’s February robocalling complaint claimed Wyndham used an automatic telephone dialing system to place calls after she experienced financial hardship and defaulted on her regular monthly payments.

Plaintiff Rogerio Castillo and defendant Citibank seek to stay Castillo’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act case and submit his claims to “binding individual arbitration,” said their joint motion Tuesday (docket 3:23-cv-01007) in U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego. The terms and conditions of the credit card agreement at issue in the case contain a binding arbitration provision requiring the parties to arbitrate their claims through the American Arbitration Association if either party makes a demand to arbitrate, it said. Citibank made that demand, it said. Castillo alleges Citibank phoned him more than 140 times to collect a debt on three credit card accounts after his lawyer sent a cease and desist letter Feb. 3 urging it to stop (see 2306010054).

The U.S. District Court for Central California in Santa Ana should deny LendingTree’s motion to dismiss plaintiff Paul Sapan’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim (see 2304100040), said Sapan’s opposition brief Friday (docket 8:23-cv-00071). The evidence and pleadings in the case “clearly support personal jurisdiction” over LendingTree, it said. It’s clear LendingTree “conducted itself in such a manner as to avail itself” of California jurisdiction, it said. The evidence establishes that LendingTree’s agents or persons hired on their behalf made calls to Sapan “to be connected via LendingTree’s own software to LendingTree,” it said. “This supports the notion that LendingTree’s calling campaigns conducted by third-parties to contact individuals and then transfer them to LendingTree via LendingTree’s software provider, includes telemarketing to California,” it said. That’s “exactly what happened in this case,” it said. “LendingTree tries to confuse this issue by acting like they are victim of a random caller with a third-party transferring a call to them against their will.”

Plaintiff Zachary Sawicki opposes loanDepot’s June 1 motion to dismiss the “abandoned call” count of his second amended Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action for failure to state a claim (see 2306050005), said his response Friday (docket 2:22-cv-14425) in U.S. District Court for South Florida in Fort Pierce. Under the TCPA, a call is deemed abandoned if it's not connected to a live sales representative within two seconds of the called person's completed greeting. LoanDepot says Sawicki's abandoned call claim should be dismissed because there's no private right of action to enforce that provision in the statute. But loanDepot’s motion “blatantly ignores the face” of Sawicki’s second amended complaint and “unwittingly takes conflicting positions in a futile effort to fit a square peg in a round hole,” said Sawicki’s response. The motion “is without merit and must be denied in its entirety,” it said. LoanDepot wrongly cites TCPA Section 227(d) as its basis for asserting no private right of action is available to Sawicki for his abandoned call claim, it said. The defendant’s argument “must fail” because courts have “correctly concluded” that the TCPA’s abandoned call provision was promulgated under Section 227(b), which grants a private right of action, and not §227(d), as loanDepot contends, said Sawicki’s response. The facts that give rise to Sawicki’s claims against loanDepot “are as simple as they come,” it said. LoanDepot began placing “voluminous” solicitation calls in November to Sawicki’s cellphone, it said. Despite Sawicki’s requests that loanDepot cease its calls, the mortgage lender “continued pounding” his cellphone number with additional solicitation calls, it said.

The Law Office of Arnold Scott Harris, a personal injury law firm in Mount Prospect, Illinois, hounded plaintiff Jason Brodsky’s cellphone with at least 85 calls with an artificial or prerecorded voice between March 2020 and April 29 this year involving “an alleged parking ticket,” said Brodsky’s complaint Wednesday (docket 1:23-cv-03775) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois. Brodsky asked the office in March 2020 to stop calling his phone, said the complaint. The defendant responded by asking him to clarify if he wanted the office to remove his number from its internal call list, or to simply stop calling, it said. When Brodsky asked the office to remove his number from its list, the defendant confirmed it would do so, but the calls nevertheless kept coming, said the complaint. It alleges violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. The defendant didn't comment.

Adroit Health, via telemarketer and co-defendant MediaAlpha, made over 20 calls over a three-day period in May to Alabama resident Maria Echols from a number with a spoofed area code, alleged a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class action Monday (docket 6:23-cv-00758) in U.S. District Court for Alabama in Jasper. The 20 calls used a spoofed (205) area code, indicative of en masse calling, despite Echols’ listing on the do not call registry, the complaint said. When Echols contacted Adroit Health via counsel about the calls, the health care company claimed Echols consented to the calls during a website visit. Plaintiff and class members were harmed by the defendants’ acts because their privacy was violated and they were “annoyed and harassed,” it said. They were also harmed by use of their telephone power and network bandwidth and by the intrusion on their phone line that occupied it from receiving “legitimate communications,” the complaint alleged. Echols seeks up to treble damages as provided by the TCPA of up to $1,500 for each violation, it said.

Plaintiff Antionette Woodard’s complaint fails to properly allege Humana is vicariously liable for the Telephone Consumer Protection Act wrongdoing of telemarketing vendor Healthubb, said Humana’s reply Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-00979) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago in support of its motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction (see 2304280006). Humana never hired Healthubb for a marketing campaign, nor did it ever permit Healthubb to access its systems or otherwise directly transfer calls to Humana agents, said the reply. It also never paid Healthubb for leads or call transfers, or authorized Healthubb to promote its products, it said. Woodard fails to challenge any of those factual statements, it said. Humana doesn’t have a marketing relationship with Healthubb and wasn’t aware of Healthubb’s calling activities, it said.

Fact discovery cutoff is planned for Dec. 12 in plaintiff Chun Wu’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action against National Tax Advisory Services, said a scheduling order Monday (docket 1:23-cv-00679) in U.S. District Court for Colorado in Denver. A final pretrial conference is set for March 14 in anticipation of a three-day jury trial, said the order, without giving a set trial date. Wu alleges the defendant violated the TCPA when it continued to place unsolicited and unauthorized calls playing prerecorded voices using technological equipment intended to spam consumers with its advertising. The defendant denies any TCPA wrongdoing and contends it doesn’t make marketing calls without appropriate consent. It also asserts it follows the law, and that any calls to Wu’s number at issue in the case were made lawfully. The parties haven’t engaged in “substantive settlement negotiations,” though they had “very preliminary” settlement talks, said the scheduling order. Wu will agree to consider mediation with a mutually selected mediator “should the negotiations occur and reach an impasse and the parties agree that mediation would be beneficial,” it said. The defendant “is open to mediation as well” as the case progresses, it said.

Telemarketing vendor Buzz360 opposes the “crossclaim” asserted April 19 by Telephone Consumer Protection Act defendant the Republican Committee of Chester County (RCCC), Pennsylvania, seeking to put the vendor on the hook for TCPA damages if it loses the case (see 2304200009), said Buzz360's answer Thursday (docket 2:22-cv-05185) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Plaintiff Mark Fidanza’s second amended complaint alleges the RCCC inundated Fidanza’s cellphone with 17 text messages between Oct. 19 and Nov. 8 during the run-up to the midterm elections, and it added Buzz360, the vendor the RCCC hired to send the text messages, as a co-defendant (see [Ref;2304060001]). Buzz360 asked the court to dismiss the RCCC’s crossclaim “in its entirety with prejudice,” and award the vendor “its reasonable attorney’s fees and costs incurred in defending this action,” said its answer.