Gould v. Farmers Ins. Exch.

288 F. Supp. 3d 963
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Missouri
DecidedJanuary 19, 2018
DocketNo. 4:17 CV 2305 RWS
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 288 F. Supp. 3d 963 (Gould v. Farmers Ins. Exch.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gould v. Farmers Ins. Exch., 288 F. Supp. 3d 963 (E.D. Mo. 2018).

Opinion

RODNEY W. SIPPEL, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

Plaintiff Catherine Gould ("Gould") alleges in this putative class action matter that Defendants Farmers Insurance Exchange, Farmers Insurance Company, Inc., and Fire Insurance Exchange (collectively, "Defendants" or "Farmers") sent her text messages in contravention of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227 ("TCPA"). Farmers moved to dismiss Gould's complaint with prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a cause of action and failure to establish Article III standing. Based upon the record before me and for the reasons that follow, I will deny Farmers' motion to dismiss.

I. Background

Gould's First Amended Complaint (the "FAC") pleads the following facts, which I accept as true for purposes of the motion to dismiss. Farmers is in the business of marketing insurance products. Between May 2, 2017 and July 27, 2017, Gould received and reviewed a series of ten text messages on her cell phone which were allegedly sent by Farmers and/or its insurance agents. Gould did not expressly consent to be called or texted by Farmers. The messages sent to Gould were addressed to "Catherine" and attributed to various parties, including "Jim with the Jim Lohse agency with Farmers Insurance," "the Jim Lohse Insurance Agency with Farmers Insurance," "Jessica with the Joe Ridgway Agency with Farmers Insurance," and "Joe Ridgway Agency with Farmers Insurance." The messages stated, inter alia , that the insurance agents wanted to follow up with Gould in order to update and finalize her insurance quote. The messages were sent in three separate sets with nearly identical repeating content during the months of May, June, and July 2017.1

Agents Jody Ridgway and Jim Lohse are identified as Farmers agents on a Farmers website. Gould alleges that Farmers' agents may only sell Farmers insurance policies, which are guaranteed by Farmers. Gould further alleges that upon an agent's sale of a policy, Farmers receives the policy premium and pays the agent commission. Gould asserts that Farmers could choose to accept or decline applications obtained through text message marketing, and received premiums for sales resulting from text messaging.

Gould alleges that the text messages were sent en masse by an automatic telephone dialing system to several phone *967numbers, including hers. Gould asserts that software called "Touchpoints" allowed Farmers to deliver the texts en masse , to send the texts at scheduled intervals, and to automatically populate each recipient's name in the text. Gould alleges that the text messages violated her privacy rights and those of the other class members, and constituted an annoying and harassing nuisance. Gould states that she and other class members wasted time addressing or otherwise responding to the texts. Gould also suggests that some class members suffered economic harm by being charged for the text messages. Gould brought this purported class action against Farmers under TCPA.

II. Legal Standard

When ruling on a motion to dismiss, I must accept as true all factual allegations in the complaint and view them in light most favorable to the Plaintiff. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) ; Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 167 L.Ed.2d 1081 (2007). The purpose of a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) is to test the legal sufficiency of the complaint. An action fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted if it does not plead "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff's factual allegations "must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level. Id. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955. In ruling on a motion to dismiss, I must accept as true all factual allegations in the complaint and view them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Hager v. Ark. Dep't of Health, 735 F.3d 1009, 1013 (8th Cir. 2013). Under the federal rules, a plaintiff need not provide " 'detailed factual allegations,' " but must provide "sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to 'state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.' " Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ). "[T]he tenet that a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal conclusions." Id."[O]nly a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief survives a motion to dismiss."

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
288 F. Supp. 3d 963, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gould-v-farmers-ins-exch-moed-2018.