Jiminez v. Credit One Bank, N.A.

377 F. Supp. 3d 324
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Illinois
DecidedMarch 28, 2019
DocketNo. 17 CV 2844-LTS-JLC
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 377 F. Supp. 3d 324 (Jiminez v. Credit One Bank, N.A.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jiminez v. Credit One Bank, N.A., 377 F. Supp. 3d 324 (S.D. Ill. 2019).

Opinion

LAURA TAYLOR SWAIN, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Alejandro Jiminez brings this action against Credit One Bank, N.A. ("Credit One"), NCO Financial Systems, Inc. ("NCO"), and Alorica, Inc. ("Alorica," and together with Credit One and NCO, "Defendants"), for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA"), 47 U.S.C. § 227. Plaintiff now moves, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56, for summary judgment. (Docket entry no. 49.) Credit One also moves for summary judgment dismissing Plaintiff's TCPA claim or, in the alternative, to stay the proceedings pending a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (the "FCC") on the treatment of reassigned phone numbers. (Docket entry nos. 68, 74.) NCO and Alorica join Credit One's opposition to Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, as well as Credit One's motions for summary judgment and for a stay. (Docket entry nos. 53, 57, 66, 83, 85.) The Court has jurisdiction of this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331. The Court has carefully considered the parties' submissions in connection with the instant motion practice and, for the following reasons, Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment is granted, and Credit One's motions for summary judgment and a stay are denied.

BACKGROUND

Unless otherwise indicated, the following facts are undisputed.1 Defendant Credit One Bank is a national banking association. (Docket entry no. 30, Credit One Answer ¶ 6.) On or around September 15, 2016, an individual applied for and obtained a credit card account with Credit *328One. (Docket entry no. 73, Def. 56.1 St. ¶ 1.) As part of the application process for the account, the individual provided her personal information to Credit One, including a telephone number ending in 7929 (the "Subject Number"). (Def. 56.1 St. ¶ 2.) Credit One approved the individual for the account and subsequently mailed her a credit card along with Credit One's standard cardholder agreement. (Def. 56.1 St. ¶ 3.) The individual accepted the terms of Credit One's standard cardholder agreement, including a provision authorizing Credit One to contact her at the telephone number she provided, when she used the card. (Def. 56.1 St. ¶ 4, 5.) Some time thereafter, the individual defaulted on her credit card account and Credit One attempted to call her to collect an unpaid balance. (Def. 56.1 St. ¶ 6.)

Credit One authorized Expert Global Solutions Financial Care ("EGS") to collect the unpaid balance.2 (Def. 56.1 St. ¶ 8.) Between January 2017 and March 27, 2017, EGS placed 380 calls to the Subject Number.3 (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶ 10.) The parties agree that EGS did not transmit any prerecorded messages to the Subject Number. (Def. 56.1 St. ¶ 15.) During the time when the calls regarding the delinquent Credit One account were made, Plaintiff was the holder of a cell phone account connected to the Subject Number. (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶ 2; Def. 56.1 ¶ 13.) It is undisputed that Plaintiff has never had any relationship with Credit One. (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶ 9.)

The calls placed by EGS to the Subject Number were all made through the LiveVox 3.2 dialing system using its Quick Connect feature. (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶ 12; Def. 56.1 St. ¶ 19.) To use the LiveVox system, an EGS manager uploads a list of telephone numbers provided by Credit One into the system each morning. (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶ 16; Def. 56.1 St. ¶ 18.) Those phone numbers are stored in the LiveVox system throughout the workday. (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶ 17.) When using Quick Connect, the dialing system uses a proprietary algorithm created by LiveVox to determine how many calls to place automatically in order to keep customer service representatives fully occupied at all times. (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶ 18.) As more customer service representatives log into the dialing system and indicate their readiness to take calls, the dialing system will increase the number of calls it automatically makes. (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶ 19.) When Quick Connect places calls, it will place more outbound calls than the number of customer service representatives actually logged in and ready to receive calls, based on the assumption that not all of the people being called will actually answer their phones. (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶ 20.) There are no customer service representatives on the phone when a call is launched by Quick Connect. (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶ 22.) Instead, Quick Connect will transfer only those calls that are answered by a customer to an available customer service representative. (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶ 23.) If there are more answered *329calls than available customer service representatives, answered calls are transferred to a holding queue until a representative becomes available. (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶ 24.) A customer service representative using Quick Connect does not have the ability to manually dial a phone number or to select a specific account to call, nor does the representative have any input into what number Quick Connect will call next. (Pl. 56.1 St. ¶¶ 26, 27.)

The parties dispute whether the LiveVox system used to call Plaintiff is properly classified as a "predictive dialing system" within the meaning of certain FCC rulings, whether the system requires human intervention to launch each call, and whether the system has the capacity to store or produce randomly or sequentially generated telephone numbers. Relying on testimony from EGS's Corporate Designee, Andrew Balthaser, and the expert report of Ray Horak, Credit One argues that LiveVox is not a predictive dialing system. Balthaser testified that Quick Connect does not operate as a predictive dialer because "to my knowledge, the algorithm is not changing. It's not adapting or predicting different things. It's operating within guardrails that are established at the creation of a campaign." (Docket entry no. 70-1, Balthaser Dep. 51:9-19.) When asked if he knew whether the LiveVox Quick Connect "algorithm or system has any predictive capabilities," Balthaser stated that "only LiveVox has access to their algorithms to see how it paces or controls the number of calls launched." (Docket entry no. 81-1, Balthaser Dep. 100:16-101:8.)

Relying on an interview with Balthaser, Horak proffers that "Mr. Balthaser advised me that Quick Connect, as configured by EGS, does not fit the definition of a [p]redictive [d]ialer." (Docket entry no. 72, Horak Rep. ¶ 53.) Horak also learned from Balthaser that, at the end of each call, a customer service representative "record[s] the result of the call," and then "click[s] a hot button labelled Ready or Next, thereby instructing the system to dial the next set of numbers from the campaign database." (Horak Rep. ¶ 53.) Horak asserts that "[t]his high level of human intervention is necessary to launch each and every call attempt for each and every [representative] logged in and available." (Id. ) Horak also asserts that the Subject Number "was not randomly or sequentially created, but rather, was obtained from" Credit One. (Horak Rep. ¶ 5.)

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Bluebook (online)
377 F. Supp. 3d 324, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jiminez-v-credit-one-bank-na-ilsd-2019.