Fini v. Dish Network L.L.C.

955 F. Supp. 2d 1288, 2013 WL 3815627, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 101829
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Florida
DecidedMarch 6, 2013
DocketCase No. 6:12-cv-690-Orl-22TBS
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 955 F. Supp. 2d 1288 (Fini v. Dish Network L.L.C.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fini v. Dish Network L.L.C., 955 F. Supp. 2d 1288, 2013 WL 3815627, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 101829 (M.D. Fla. 2013).

Opinion

ORDER

ANNE C. CONWAY, District Judge.

This cause comes before the Court on Plaintiff Stephanie Fini’s (“Plaintiff”) Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 41), to which Defendant, Dish Network L.L.C. (“Defendant”), responded (Doc. No. 55), and Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 46), to which Plaintiff responded (Doc. No. 53). Plaintiff also filed a Notice of Supplemental Authority (Doc. No. 69), to which the Court permitted Defendant to respond (Doc. No. 73).

I. BACKGROUND1

This case concerns a series of calls by Defendant to Plaintiffs personal cell phone concerning the debt of a third person with whom Plaintiff had no relationship. The facts are relatively simple, though disputed in at least one key respect. Plaintiffs Motion for Summary Judgment pertains only to fourteen calls, admitted by Defen[1290]*1290dant, that allegedly violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227 et seq. (“TCPA”). Defendant’s Motion seeks Summary Judgment with respect to liability for all calls alleged by Plaintiff under the TCPA as well as her claim under the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act, Fla. Stat. § 559.55 et seq. (“FCCPA”). Although Defendant admitted to making fifteen calls (fourteen of which were relevant), it claims that Plaintiff lacked standing to sue under the TCPA for any calls, including the admitted ones, and strenuously disputes the existence of any calls beyond those that were admitted.

A. Facts Pertinent to Plaintiffs Motion

Plaintiff is the “owner, regular user and possessor” of a cell phone, initially acquired more than three years ago, with the assigned telephone number ending in 4239 (“Plaintiffs phone”). (Pl.’s Mot. Partial Summ. J. (Doc. No. 41), at pp. 2-3.) The phone company lists Plaintiffs husband, John, as the service subscriber for Plaintiffs phone, but Plaintiff asserts that both she and John are responsible for their joint wireless phone bills. (Id. at p. 3; Pl.’s Mot. Ex. 3 (Doc. No. 42-3), at p. 1.) Defendant admitted to placing fourteen relevant calls to Plaintiffs phone via an automated dialing system and prerecorded message, (Def.’s Mot. Summ. J. (Doc. No. 46), at p. 6); Plaintiff contends that more calls were made (Pl.’s Mot. Partial Summ. J. at p. 3.).

Plaintiff received the calls because one of Defendant’s subscribers, JH, provided Plaintiffs phone number as his own in his initial contract for service with Defendant.2 (Def.’s Mot. at p. 5.) JH consented to receive calls at that number from Defendant, which has an organized system for reminding customers, via automatic dialing and prerecorded messages, to pay their bills when they fail to do so. (Id. at pp. 5-7.) According to Defendant, JH fell behind on his payments on August 17, 2011, and this triggered a call to Plaintiffs phone on August 18 (Id. at pp. 8-9.) Defendant claims to have autodialed Plaintiffs phone thirteen more times between August 18 and December 21, 2011. (Id. at pp. 9-11.) During that period, Plaintiff or her husband called Defendant at least three times; Defendant claims that on two occasions, Plaintiffs husband requested to be placed on the “Do Not Call” list (which Defendant maintains only for telemarketing purposes) and on a third occasion to have Plaintiffs phone number “suppressed.” (Id. at pp. 9-10.) The final call occurred on December 21, 2011, one month after this third request. (Id. at p. 11.) Plaintiff saved a voicemail left by Defendant during that call. The message was transcribed to state the following:

This is an important message from Dish Network, your satellite TV provider. We have made several attempts to contact you regarding the payment of your account balance. This is a final notification regarding your outstanding account balance prior to service interruption. To continue your monthly services and avoid collection of early termination fees, please pay the total amount due shown on your last statement immediately by logging into dish.com or call 1-866-263-1911. Thank you for being a valued Dish Network Customer.

(PL’s Compl. at ¶ 19.)

B. Facts Pertinent to Defendant’s Motion

Defendant’s Motion and both parties’ subsequent Responses introduce several [1291]*1291additional facts, some of which are disputed. First, Defendant’s Motion makes clear that Plaintiff has never been a customer of Defendant and has never owed Defendant any money. (Id. at p. 4.) Plaintiff admitted to knowing, by “August [or] September” of 2011, that Defendant was not seeking any money from her or her husband. (Id. at pp. 4-5 (quoting S. Fini Dep. (Doc. No. 42-1), at p. 55.))

Defendant maintains a “late payment reminder system” that, apparently automatically, calls customers with unpaid invoices once or twice per week for about a month after payment on their invoices is due. (Id. at p. 7.) The reminder calls stop once the customer becomes current on his account, but resume should the customer fall behind once again. (Id.) JH, Defendant’s actual customer who supplied Plaintiffs phone number as his own, had unpaid invoices from August 17, 2011 until October 23, 2011, and again from November 17, 2011 until the calls stopped. (Id. at pp. 8-11; Id. at Ex. L.) According to the results of a search of unmodified call logs from Defendant’s dialing software for JH’s account, Defendant attempted to contact JH (instead reaching Plaintiffs phone) in accordance with the late payment reminder system’s schedule. (See id. at Exs. G, H.) Nothing submitted by Defendant suggests that its autodialing system placed more than fifteen calls to Plaintiffs phone.

In her Complaint, Plaintiff claimed to have received approximately 55 calls from Defendant, playing the same or similar message each time, starting in June 2011 and continuing until December 2011. (Pl.’s Compl. (Doc. No. 2), at ¶¶ 19-21.) Plaintiff arrived at this number because she believes that she received a minimum of four calls per month, “not including the calls she hung up on.” (PL’s Resp. (Doc. No. 53) at p. 7.) At the close of discovery, the only evidence positively supporting this claim came from the deposition testimony of Plaintiff and her husband. (See id. at pp. 6-8.) Their testimony, in turn, is based purely on their own recollections of when they received calls. (S. Fini Dep. (Doc. No. 42-1) at p. 55.)3 Their testimony is vague as to who actually received those calls: according to Plaintiffs husband, he answered her phone “at least ten (10) times.” (PL’s Resp. at p. 7; J. Fini Dep. (Doc. No. 42-2), at pp. 20-22.)

Plaintiff attempts to cast doubt on the accuracy of Defendant’s claim that it only called Plaintiffs phone fourteen times by identifying three purported flaws in Defendant’s call recording system. First, she notes that “Defendant did not consider its autodialer calls ‘delivered’ to Plaintiffs cellular telephone number until the call was dialed, answered by a live person or Plaintiffs answering machine, and the complete prerecorded voice message was played in its entirety.” (PL’s Resp. at p.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
955 F. Supp. 2d 1288, 2013 WL 3815627, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 101829, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fini-v-dish-network-llc-flmd-2013.