Miles v. America Online, Inc.

202 F.R.D. 297, 51 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 247, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16813, 2001 WL 909249
District Court, M.D. Florida·Decided August 3, 2001·No. No. 8:00-CV-273·Published·Cited by 9 cases

Opinion

[299] ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFFS’ RENEWED MOTION FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION AND DEFINING CLASS

MOODY, District Judge.

This cause came on for consideration on Plaintiffs’ Renewed Motion for Class Certification (Dkt.# 74) and Defendant’s response thereto (Dkt.# 151). Both parties have filed supplemental pleadings in support of their position on class certification. See Dkts. # 165, # 166, # 168, # 169. The Court has also considered the parties’ filings on Plaintiffs’ original Motion for Class Certification. Plaintiffs filed a lengthy Motion for Leave to File a Reply in Support of their Renewed Motion for Class Certification (Dkt.# 48) and Defendant filed a response in opposition thereto (Dkt.# 159). The Court has also heard the arguments of counsel on February 23, 2001, and subsequently reviewed the parties’ requested submissions on subject matter jurisdiction. See Dkts.# 174, 175, 178. Upon consideration of the motions, responses, supplemental filings, record evidence, the arguments of counsel, and the Court file, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have met their burden for establishing class certification pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 23 and hereby grants certification of the narrowly-defined class set forth herein.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On February 10, 2000, Plaintiff Marguerite Miles (“Miles”) filed a class action Complaint against Defendant America Online, Inc. (“AOL”) for violations of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, § 501 et seq., Fla. Stat. (“FDUTPA”), and for fraud and fraudulent inducement by omission. Originally, Plaintiff brought this action on behalf of all persons residing in the state of Florida and invoked the Court’s diversity jurisdiction. AOL answered Plaintiffs Complaint and then Plaintiff filed an amended class action complaint on April 25, 2000. Plaintiff added a claim for alleged violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, as amended, 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (hereinafter referred to as the “CFAA”). Plaintiff then requested leave to file a second amended complaint. Plaintiff added a second Plaintiff/proposed class representative, Patricia Colclasure, a Kansas citizen. Additionally, Plaintiffs added claims that AOL violated other states’ statutes prohibiting deceptive and unfair trade practices.

Plaintiffs’ claims focus on AOL’s conduct in signing up customers for its internet access service through what Plaintiffs describe as a “uniform, standardized advertising and promotional campaign” that induced “tens of thousands of consumers nation-wide” to subscribe to and use AOL’s internet access service for a “low monthly fee varying in price but averaging $19.95 per month for the use of the service.” Plaintiffs further allege that AOL deceived its subscribers by stating that their monthly fee would be “fixed” at $19.95 for “unlimited” internet access. It is Plaintiffs’ contention that AOL failed to disclose, or failed to effectively disclose, that its subscribers would most likely incur long distance telephone charges in addition to their monthly AOL fee.1 Plaintiffs further allege that AOL knowingly impaired the integrity of Plaintiffs’ computers “in numerous ways, including but not limited to configuring the computers to dial long-distance numbers to access [AOL’s] services, without authorization, and/or directing the transmission or initiation of forced downloads, without authorization” and thereby damaging Plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs propose two national classes. The first class proposed by Plaintiffs includes all AOL consumers from February 15, 1996, to present who subscribed to AOL through an access number and who incurred long-distance charges through a “local access number.” The second proposed class consists of AOL consumers from February 15, 1998, to present who incurred long distance phone charges in connection with AOL’s internet access service and whose computers were damaged by AOL’s “configuration” of [300] their computer to dial long distance numbers to access AOL’s internet service.

AOL defends its conduct on the grounds that it did not deceive consumers and that its uniform disclosures regarding potential long distance charges were sufficient.2 AOL further contends that the software contained on the disk authorized AOL to perform the activities connected with the provision of internet service once the subscriber agreed to and accepted AOL’s “terms of service”

LEGAL ARGUMENTS

Subject Matter Jurisdiction

As part of the class certification process, the parties were requested to file briefs regarding this Court’s jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims. In their jurisdictional memorandum, Plaintiffs confirm that they are not invoking the Court’s diversity jurisdiction; instead they are proceeding only under the Court’s federal question jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1030, and requesting the Court invoke supplemental jurisdiction of Plaintiffs’ state law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367.

To prove a CFAA claim, Plaintiffs must prove that AOL “knowingly cause[d] the transmission of a program, information, code or command, and as a result of such conduct intentionally cause[d] damage without authorization to a protected computer.” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5)(A). The statute defines damage to mean “any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information, that ... causes loss aggregating at least $5,000 in value during any one year period to one or more individuals.” 18 U.S.C. § 1030(c)(8)(A). AOL contends that Plaintiffs’ CFAA claims fail to satisfy the statute because (1) their claimed economic damages are less than $5,000 (and should not be aggregated); (2) AOL did not cause damage to any of plaintiffs computers or cause any “impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information;” and (3) AOL’s conduct was “authorized” within the meaning of the statute.

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Miles v. America Online, Inc., 202 F.R.D. 297, 51 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 247, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16813, 2001 WL 909249 (M.D. Fla. 2001).

202 F.R.D. 297 (Miles v. America Online, Inc.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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