Agne v. Papa John's International, Inc.

286 F.R.D. 559, 83 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1181, 2012 WL 5473719, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162088
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Washington
DecidedNovember 9, 2012
DocketNo. C10-1139-JCC
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 286 F.R.D. 559 (Agne v. Papa John's International, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Washington primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Agne v. Papa John's International, Inc., 286 F.R.D. 559, 83 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1181, 2012 WL 5473719, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162088 (W.D. Wash. 2012).

Opinion

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION

JOHN C. COUGHENOUR, District Judge.

This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiff Maria Agne’s1 motion for class certification (Dkt. No. 219). Having thoroughly considered the parties’ briefing and the relevant record, the Court finds oral argument unnecessary and hereby GRANTS the motion for the reasons explained herein. The Court certifies the following classes:

National Class
All persons in the United States of America who were sent, to their cellular telephone numbers, at least one unsolicited text message that marketed a Papa John’s branded product, good, or service through OnTime4U.
Washington Sub-class2
All persons in Washington State who were sent, to their cellular telephone numbers, at least one unsolicited text message that marketed a Papa John’s branded product, good, or service through OnTime4U.

1. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff alleges that Defendants violated state and federal law when they sent her and thousands of others unsolicited text messages advertising Papa John’s pizza products. (Dkt. No. 164 at 5.) Plaintiff asserts claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), the Washington Consumer Protection Act, and common law negligence doctrine. (Id. at 23-25.) Plaintiff moves to certify a national class of all persons in the United States who were sent text messages advertising Papa John’s pizza by Defendant OnTime4U and a sub-class of all persons in Washington State who were sent such messages by Defendant OnTime4U (Dkt. No. 219.) The Court certifies both classes.

Defendants Papa John’s International, Inc. and Papa John’s USA (collectively, “Papa John’s”) enters into franchise agreements with independent franchisees throughout the country, which in turn operate Papa John’s-branded pizza restaurants. (Dkt. No. 251 at 2. ) Franchise agreements govern the relationship between Papa John’s as franchisor and its franchisees. (Id. at 2.) Pursuant to these agreements, Papa John’s has the ability to “request certain types of information” from its franchisees and to insist on compliance with certain “requirements that maintain the value of the Papa John’s brand.” (Id. at 2.) Generally, however, the franchisees maintain control over the day-to-day operations of their restaurants. (Id. at 3.)

Papa John’s employs Franchise Business Directors (“FBD”) who liaise with franchisees in order to “ensure compliance with brand standards” and serve “as a general [562]*562resource to facilitate franchise relationships.” (Id at 4.) Each FBD covers multiple states and multiple franchisees. According to Papa John’s, the FBDs do not have authority to control or dictate franchisees’ local advertising and marketing decisions and “franchisees make their own local marketing decisions.” (Id.)

Defendant OnTime4U, a marketing company, offered to increase the profits of Papa John’s restaurants by sending text message advertisements to their customers. (Dkt. No. 253 at 2-3.) OnTime4U apparently told Papa John’s franchisees that it was legal to send texts without express customer consent because there was an existing business relationship between the customers and the Papa John’s restaurants. (Dkt. No. 220, Ex. 1 at 4.) Certain Papa John’s franchisees, including at least some of the Rain City Defendants,3 provided OnTime4U with lists of telephone numbers of individuals who had purchased pizza from them. (Dkt. No. 220, Ex. 1). Those lists were generated out of the PROFIT system, a proprietary database that Papa John’s describes as a “point of sale data entry system.” (Dkt. No. 144 at 3.) The PROFIT system is downloaded onto registers in Papa John’s restaurants and tracks customer and order information. (Id) OnTime4U removed landline numbers from the lists and sent text messages to the numbers associated with cell phones. (Dkt. No. 152 at 3.)

The text messages OnTime4U sent on behalf of the Papa John’s franchisees solicited consumers to purchase Papa John’s products. (Dkt. No. 221 at 1-2.) Each message provided the customer with the telephone number corresponding to a particular Papa John’s restaurant along with a promotional code. (Id.)

In April of 2010, Plaintiff received three messages sent by OnTime4U. (Id at 1.) Plaintiff never gave any Papa John’s entity her express consent to send her text messages or make marketing calls to her cell phone. (Id at 2.) Complaints from other customers state that they too received text message advertisements without having given their prior consent to Papa John’s or one of the franchisees. (Dkt. No. 153, Ex. 5 at 3 & Ex. 11 at 2.) A former OnTime4U partner testified that, to her knowledge, none of the Papa John’s franchisees had received prior consent from its customers to send them text message advertisements. (Dkt. No. 152.) Kevin Sonneborn, one of the Rain City Defendants, testified that customers of his franchise were not asked for their permission to send text messages before their phone numbers were given to OnTime4U. (Dkt. No. 220, Ex. 1 at 3-8.) There is no evidence in the record that any customer who received messages sent by OnTime4U gave such consent.

Plaintiff has sued both OnTime4U and the Washington-based Papa John’s franchisees that she believes commissioned the messages she received. She has also sued Papa John’s (the national franchisor), alleging that its involvement in the OnTime4U marketing campaign renders it liable. There is no evidence that Papa John’s contracted directly with OnTime4U. But Plaintiff alleges that Papa John’s directed, encouraged, and authorized its franchisees to use OnTime4U’s services. Preliminary discovery supports her allegations. Sonnenborn testified that when he told his FBD that he had run a test campaign with OnTime4U and it was not successful, the FBD told him to “try it again.” (Dkt. No. 220, Ex. 1 at 6.) Papa John’s has produced emails from two different FBDs encouraging their franchisees to try OnTime4U’s text blast services. (See, e.g., Dkt. No. 153, Ex 2; Dkt. No. 262, Ex. 2).4 More[563]*563over there is evidence that 0nTime4U made a presentation promoting its services at the fall 2009 Papa John’s “Operators Summit” in Las Vegas. (Dkt. No. 152 at 7; Dkt. No. 262, Ex. 2 at 3^1.) Needless to say, the precise nature of Papa John’s involvement in franchisee decisions to use OnTime4U services has yet to be definitively established.

Whatever the extent of Papa John’s involvement in OnTime4U’s text blast program, Papa John’s eventually formally disavowed the program. On April 27, 2010, Papa John’s sent the following memorandum to all of its corporate stores and franchisees:

In recent months our Customer Support and Digital Marketing teams have received complaints about unsolicited SMS and MMS messages being sent to mobile phones. Investigation of these messages lead [sic] to a company called OnTime4U, which has been contracting with Papa John’s franchisees and corporate operators to send such messages to customers by exporting customer telephone numbers from our PROFIT point of sale system.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
286 F.R.D. 559, 83 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 1181, 2012 WL 5473719, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162088, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/agne-v-papa-johns-international-inc-wawd-2012.