McCurley v. Royal Seas Cruises, Inc.

CourtDistrict Court, S.D. California
DecidedAugust 14, 2019
Docket3:17-cv-00986
StatusUnknown

This text of McCurley v. Royal Seas Cruises, Inc. (McCurley v. Royal Seas Cruises, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McCurley v. Royal Seas Cruises, Inc., (S.D. Cal. 2019).

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

10 JOHN MCCURLEY, DAN DEFOREST, individually and on Case No. 17-cv-00986-BAS-AGS 11 behalf of all others similarly situated, ORDER GRANTING IN PART 12 Plaintiffs, AND DENYING IN PART v. PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION FOR 13 APPROVAL OF PROPOSED CLASS NOTICE PLAN 14 ROYAL SEAS CRUISES, INC.,

[ECF No. 100] 15 Defendant.

16 17 Plaintiffs John McCurley and Dan DeForest move for approval of their 18 proposed class notice plan. (ECF Nos. 100, 103.) Plaintiffs’ motion presents two 19 separate and alternative notice plans—the proposed Direct Notice Plan and the 20 proposed Publication Notice Plan—for which Plaintiffs seek court approval of only 21 one, preferably publication notice. Defendant Royal Seas Cruises, Inc. (“Royal”) 22 principally opposes the proposed Publication Notice Plan and argues that Plaintiffs’ 23 proposed notice is otherwise incomplete. (ECF No. 102.) For the reasons herein, the 24 Court grants Plaintiffs’ motion for approval of the Direct Notice Plan and denies 25 Plaintiffs’ motion for approval of the Publication Notice Plan. Having reviewed the 26 proposed notices, the Court finds that they lack certain information that Rule 23 27 requires for notice in a Rule 23(b)(3) class action. Thus, the Court orders certain 1 RELEVANT BACKGROUND 2 1. Class Certification 3 Plaintiffs previously moved for certification of nationwide Rule 23(b)(2) and 4 Rule 23(b)(3) TCPA classes. (ECF No. 49.) The Court granted in part and denied in 5 part Plaintiffs’ motion. See McCurley v. Royal Seas Cruises, Inc., 331 F.R.D. 142 6 (S.D. Cal. 2019). As a result, the Court has certified nationwide Rule 23(b)(3) TCPA 7 classes as follows: 8 Class: 9 All persons within the United States who received a telephone call (1) 10 from Prospects, DM, Inc. on behalf of Royal Seas Cruises, Inc. (2) on 11 said Class Member’s cellular telephone (3) made through the use of any 12 automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice, 13 (4) between November 2016 and December 2017, (5) where such calls 14 were placed for the purpose of marketing, (6) to non-customers of Royal 15 Seas Cruises, Inc. at the time of the calls, and (7) whose cellular 16 telephone number is associated in Prospects DM’s records with either 17 diabeteshealth.info or www.yourautohealthlifeinsurance.com. 18 19 Transfer Subclass: 20 All members of the Class whose call resulted in a Transfer to Royal Seas 21 Cruises, Inc. 22 McCurley, 331 F.R.D. at 163. 23 24 2. Proposed Alternative Notice Plans 25 After receiving two extensions to propose a class notice plan, (ECF Nos. 92, 26 95), Plaintiffs timely filed the present motion. Class Counsel retained KCC Class 27 Services (“KCC”), a class action administration firm, to design the proposed notice 1 101-1 Carla A. Peak (Vice President of Legal Notification Services for KCC) Decl. 2 (“Peak Decl”) ¶¶ 2, 7; see also ECF No. 100-3 Matthew M. Loker (Class Counsel) 3 Decl. (“Loker Decl.”) ¶ 20 Ex. 7 (KCC’s proposed Dissemination Plan).) 4 5 As a general matter, KCC will establish a case website 6 (www.RoyalSeasCruisesTCPAClassAction.com) to allow Class Members to obtain 7 additional information and documents about the litigation, including the Complaints, 8 Class Certification Order, and Detailed Notice. (Peak Decl. ¶ 22; Loker Decl. ¶ 12.) 9 The website address will appear in any notice the Court approves. (Peak Decl. ¶ 22.) 10 KCC will establish a toll-free telephone number to allow Class Members to learn 11 more about the litigation and to request that notice be mailed to them directly. (Id. ¶ 12 23.) The number will appear on the website and any notice the Court approves. (Id.) 13 Finally, KCC will establish and monitor a case mailbox where Class Members can 14 submit exclusion requests and other case correspondence. (Id. ¶ 24.) 15 16 Proposed Direct Notice Plan. Under this proposed plan, Class Counsel 17 and/or Royal would provide KCC with all the telephone numbers available in 18 Prospects DM’s (“Prospects”) records for diabeteshealth.info and 19 www.yourautohealthlifeinsurance.com, which KCC would compile into a single 20 Notice List. (Id. ¶ 13.) KCC would de-duplicate telephone numbers in the Notice 21 List so that unique telephone numbers appear once and then KCC would perform a 22 reverse directory search to determine viable postal addresses for each unique 23 telephone number. (Id.) After the search, KCC would update the Notice List and de- 24 duplicate to ensure that a single postcard notice is mailed for each unique phone 25 number to the actual user of the phone number, as best as can be determined. (Id. ¶ 26 14.) If the reach of the Direct Notice Plan falls below 70%, then KCC would use 27 digital media advertisements to ensure the Notice Plan reaches at least 70% of likely 1 Service mail for identified physical addresses, with a follow-up address identification 2 plan for any notice initially returned as undeliverable. (Id. ¶¶ 16–18.) Class Counsel 3 has submitted a proposed postcard notice. (Loker Decl. ¶ 16 Ex. 5.) Class Counsel 4 “believe[s]” that if direct mail notice is required “it should be accomplished first with 5 the post card notice that directs consumers to the Website.” (Id. ¶ 17.) Class Counsel 6 submits a separate proposed long form notice, which is presumably the Detailed 7 Notice to which KCC refers in its declaration. (Id. ¶ 18 Ex. 6.) Royal believes the 8 long form notice should be sent to consumers instead of the proposed postcard notice. 9 (Id. ¶ 19; see also ECF No. 102.) 10 11 Proposed Publication Notice Plan. Under this proposed plan, KCC would 12 cause a “Summary Notice” to appear in ESPN The Magazine, which apparently 13 “reaches 7.3% of likely Class Members” with “likely Class members [] 2.2% more 14 likely to be readers of the magazine, as compared to the general adult population.” 15 (Peak Decl. ¶ 19.) In addition, KCC would engage in digital media advertising by 16 purchasing either 116 million or 242 million digital media advertising impressions to 17 be distributed via the Google Display Network and Facebook over a period of 60 18 days, with impressions “targeted to likely Class Members.” (Id. ¶ 21; Loker Decl. 19 Ex. 7 at 6.)1 The impressions would appear on desktop and mobile devices and would 20 include an embedded link to the case website. (Id.) Class Counsel has submitted the 21 proposed text for ESPN The Magazine and three proposed Facebook Ads. (Loker 22 Decl. ¶¶ 11, 14, Ex. 1 (ESPN The Magazine and case website text), Ex. 2 (Facebook 23 ads), Ex. 4 (ESPN The Magazine formatted text).) 24 25 1 Although Peak’s declaration proposes that KCC will purchase 242 million 26 digital media advertising impressions, (Peak Decl. ¶ 21), the KCC Dissemination 27 Plan refers only to 116 million impressions, (Loker Decl. Ex. 7 at 6). This discrepancy, while concerning, is ultimately unavailing because the Court rejects the 1 LEGAL STANDARD 2 A court must approve the content and form of class notice. Fed. R. Civ. P. 3 23(d). District courts possess broad discretion to shape class notice to comply with 4 Rule 23. Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. v. Sperling, 493 U.S. 165, 170 (1989) (holding 5 that it is proper for district courts to “interven[e] in the notice process”). As is 6 relevant here, class notice must satisfy Rule 23(c)(2), which “requires a higher 7 standard of notice for a Rule 23(b)(3) class action.” Frank v. United Airlines, Inc., 8 216 F.3d 845, 851 (9th Cir. 2000) (citing Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 9 173 (1974)).

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Bluebook (online)
McCurley v. Royal Seas Cruises, Inc., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mccurley-v-royal-seas-cruises-inc-casd-2019.