Hannabury v. Hilton Grand Vacations Co.

174 F. Supp. 3d 768, 2016 WL 1181789, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39493
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. New York
DecidedMarch 25, 2016
DocketCase # 14-CV-6126-FPG
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 174 F. Supp. 3d 768 (Hannabury v. Hilton Grand Vacations Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hannabury v. Hilton Grand Vacations Co., 174 F. Supp. 3d 768, 2016 WL 1181789, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39493 (W.D.N.Y. 2016).

Opinion

DECISION AND ORDER

HON. FRANK P. GERACI, JR., Chief Judge

Before the Court is a motion to substitute the Estate of Mark Hannabury (“Plaintiffs estate”) in the place of Mark Hannabury (“Plaintiff’) in this action. ECF No. 29.

[771]*771BACKGROUND

Plaintiff passed away on December 19, 2015. Id. at 1. In 2014, he had instituted this putative class action against Hilton Grand Vacations Company, LLC (“Hilton”) after Hilton allegedly made two unsolicited phone calls to Plaintiffs cell phone. ECF No. 5 at ¶¶ 4, 24. Hilton was apparently calling Plaintiff to try to sell him an interest in its timeshare properties. Id. at ¶¶ 20, 23, 25.

By making these two phone calls, Hilton allegedly violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (“TCPA”). Id. at ¶¶ 51-71. As Plaintiff recounts in the Amended Complaint, the TCPA was enacted in response to “[voluminous consumer complaints about abuses of telephone technology.” Id. at ¶ 11 (quoting Mims v. Arrow Fin. Servs., LLC, — U.S.-, 132 S.Ct. 740, 744, 181 L.Ed.2d 881 (2012)). To remedy this problem, the TCPA prohibits parties from, among other things, making two types of phone calls. First, under 47 U.S.C. § 227(b), parties cannot make calls to cell phones using any “automatic telephone dialing system,” ie., autodialers. 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A). Second, under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c), parties cannot make more than one call within a twelve-month period to a number listed on a do-not-call registry provided for by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”).1 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5); 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(c)(2); 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(e). In the Amended Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that Hilton ran afoul of both Section 227(b) and 227(c); Hilton used an autodialer in making the calls to Plaintiffs cell phone (ECF No. 5 at ¶ 29), and Hilton called Plaintiffs phone twice within twelve months even though his number was listed on the do-not-call registry (Id. at ¶27).

The TCPA allows a person who has received these violative calls to recover for “actual monetary loss from such a violation, or to receive up to $500 in damages for each such violations, whichever is greater.” 47 U.S.C. §§ 227(b)(3), (c)(5). Furthermore, the TCPA allows the recipient of the calls to recover treble damages, so up to $1,500 per call, if the defendant “willfully or knowingly” violates Section 227(b) or 227(c), or the regulations promulgated thereunder. Id.

Accordingly, Plaintiff brings four TCPA claims against Hilton. The first claim,2 brought under 47 U.S.C. § 227(b), seeks $500 in damages per call due to Hilton’s use of an autodialer in making the calls. ECF No. 5 at ¶¶ 66-71. The second claim, also brought under 47 U.S.C. § 227(b), seeks treble damages of up to $1,500 per call because Hilton willfully or knowingly violated the TCPA in using an autodialer to make the calls. Id. at ¶¶ 60-65. The third claim, brought under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c), seeks $500 in damages per call due to Hilton calling Plaintiff more than once while his number was listed on the national do-not-call registry.3 Id. at ¶¶ 56-59. The [772]*772fourth claim, also brought under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c); seeks treble damages of up to $1,500 per call because Hilton willfully or knowingly violated the TCPA in calling Plaintiff more than once while his number was listed on the do-not-call registry. Id. at’IHl 51-55. Plaintiff also seeks injunctions prohibiting Hilton from making these types of calls in the future. Id. at ¶¶ 54, 63, 69.

Notably, though Plaintiff had not yet moved to certify a class at the time of his death, he sought to bring the action on behalf of two proposed subclasses. ECF No. 5 at ¶¶ 40-41. The two subclasses correspond to the two subsections of the TCPA at issue, 47 U.S.C. §§ 227(b) and 227(c). In accordance with Section 227(b), one subclass covered those who had received calls from Hilton via an autodialer during the class period. Id. at ¶41. In accordance with Section 227(c), the other subclass covered those who had received more than one call from Hilton while their numbers were listed the do-not-call registry during the class period. Id. at ¶40. Plaintiff estimated in the Amended Complaint that there were more than one million members in both proposed subclasses. Id. at ¶ 42.

DISCUSSION

As an initial matter, the Court must determine whether state or federal law governs the fundamental issue in this case, which is, simply stated, whether Plaintiffs claims under the TCPA survive his- death.

The appropriate source of law has caused some confusion among Plaintiffs estate and Hilton. In its motion to substitute, .Plaintiffs estate simply assumes without discussion that state law governs the survivability of TCPA claims. ECF Nos. 32; 35. It bases this assumption on a Tenth Circuit case, US Fax Law Center, Inc. v. iHire, Inc., 476 F.3d 1112 (10th Cir.2007), which observed that “Congress expressly directed [in the TCPA] that federal courts apply substantive state law to determine which persons or entities may bring TCPA claims in federal court.” ECF No. 32 at 2 (quoting iHire, 476 F.3d at 1118). Hilton, meanwhile, is more equivocal about whether state or federal law applies, and has provided the Court with a brief discussion of federal law “[i]n an abundance of caution, and in the event the Court elects to analyze this issue under federal law.” ECF No. 34 at 4.

The confusion among Plaintiffs estate and Hilton stems from a few introductory words in both Section 227(b)(3) and 227(c)(5) of the TCPA. Both subsections permit a person to bring án action for $500 in damages — which, again, may be trebled if the caller violates the TCPA willfully or knowingly — “in an appropriate court of [a] State,” “if [such an action is] otherwise permitted by the laws or rules of court of [that] State.” 47 U.S.C. §§ 227(b)(3), (c)(5) (emphasis added).

Prior to 2012, a variety of circuits assigned an outsized importance to this “if otherwise permitted by ...

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Bluebook (online)
174 F. Supp. 3d 768, 2016 WL 1181789, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39493, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hannabury-v-hilton-grand-vacations-co-nywd-2016.