Williams v. PillPack LLC

District Court, W.D. Washington·Decided February 12, 2021·No. 3:19-cv-05282·Unknown

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE Plaintiff, C19-5282 TSZ v. ORDER Defendant. THIS MATTER comes before the Court on Plaintiff’s Motion for Class Certification, docket no. 29. Having reviewed all papers and evidence filed in support of the motion, and in opposition,1 the Court enters the following Order: Background 1. Defendant’s Telemarketing Campaign Defendant PillPack LLC is a full-service pharmacy that delivers medications in multi-dose packaging to patients’ homes. Swindle Decl. at ¶ 2 (docket no. 62). In March 2018, Defendant engaged a company called Performance Media Strategies, Inc. (“Performance Media”) to telemarket its services. See Hunt Decl. at ¶ 2 (docket no. 63); Anderson Decl. at ¶¶ 4–5 (docket no. 34). The following month, Defendant executed a PillPack Insertion Order (“Agreement”), hiring Performance Media as an independent contractor to generate live customer leads and transfer those leads to Defendant’s call center (“Campaign”). Agreement, Ex. 28 (docket no. 128). Around that time, Defendant was purportedly informed that the calls “would be placed using a prerecorded voice system which is sometimes described . . . as an Avatar or an IVR (interactive voice response) system.” Anderson Decl. at ¶ 7. Defendant was also purportedly informed that a third party—a company called Prospects DM—would place the calls. See id.2 Throughout the Campaign, from March 2018 to June 2019, Performance Media engaged Prospects DM to place calls and transfer them to Defendant’s call center. Anderson Decl. at ¶ 8. Prospects DM obtained the called parties’ contact information from three companies: Little Brook Media, Sharecare Inc., and Yodel Technologies LLC. See Grant Decl. at ¶ 4, Ex. 34 to Sealed Motion (docket no. 37-17).3 Yodel obtained at least some of that contact information from a fourth company, Fluent Inc. See Barsky Decl. at ¶ 6 (docket no. 69). Those companies collectively operate dozens of websites on which individuals may consent to be called by the companies or their “Marketing Partners.” See id. at ¶¶ 4, 7–8; Hebard Decl. at ¶ 2 (docket no. 64). 2. Calls to Plaintiff In March 2019, Plaintiff Aaron Williams received a prerecorded call advertising a pharmacy service on his cell phone and was transferred to Defendant’s call center. Id. at 2 Defendant denies any knowledge of Prospects DM. See Hunt Decl. at ¶ 5. 3 The Declaration of Joshua Grant, Prospects PM’s principal, was filed under seal, but the parties cite or ¶ 7. After Plaintiff asked for Defendant’s name and address, he was transferred to Defendant’s customer care line. Id.; Call Transcript, Ex. 12 to Hebard Decl. Plaintiff told Defendant’s employee to “please stop calling people with the automated phone call” and that “[i]t’s not appropriate to call people on their cell phones for marketing purposes.” Call Transcript, Ex. 13 to Hebard Decl. Plaintiff also warned that Defendant “is on notice that . . . if [he] receive[s] another phone call [he] will sue.” Id. According to Defendant, when Plaintiff was “transferred over to the customer care team,” it lost the ability “to track” Plaintiff. Swindle Dep., Ex. 4 to Fairchild Decl. (docket no. 61 at 27). In April 2019, Plaintiff received another call on his cell phone, which “appeared to repeat the same prerecorded message [he] had received” earlier. Williams Decl. at ¶ 8. Defendant maintains that Plaintiff’s number is associated with a person named Michael Morgan, who consented to receive calls to that number on one of Yodel’s websites in April 2018. See Sponsler Expert Report at ¶¶ 20–21, 24, Ex. 10 to Fairchild Decl. Plaintiff testified that he did not “enter or authorize anyone else to enter [his] cell number or the name Michael Morgan into [that] website.” Williams Decl. at ¶ 9. Plaintiff also submitted evidence that he has used that cell number continuously since 2008, and that he registered the number on the National Do Not Call Registry (“DNC Registry”) in late 2010. Id. at ¶¶ 4–6 & Exs. 1–3 (docket no. 33). 3. Plaintiff’s Class Action Plaintiff filed a class action complaint against Defendant, asserting two causes of action under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (“TCPA”), 47 U.S.C. § 227 et seq.: (1) a violation of § 227(b)(1) for calls made using an automatic telephone dialing calls placed to numbers listed on the DNC Registry. See First Amended Complaint (docket no. 6). In July 2020, Plaintiff filed this Motion for Class Certification (“Motion”), docket no. 29.4 The Court deferred ruling on the Motion, after requesting that the parties file supplemental briefing; and it granted the parties’ motions to file supplemental evidence in support of, or in opposition to, the Motion. See Minute Orders (docket nos. 131, 133). Having been fully advised, the Court now rules as follows: Discussion 1. Class Certification Standard “Class certification is governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23.” Wal- Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 345 (2011). Under Rule 23(a), the party seeking certification must show, first, that “(1) the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable; (2) there are questions of law or fact common to the class; (3) the claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical of the claims or defenses of the class; and (4) the representative parties will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a). “Second, the proposed class must satisfy at least one of the three requirements listed in Rule 23(b).” Dukes, 564 U.S. at 345. Plaintiff relies on Rule 23(b)(3), which requires him to show that “questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only

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Williams v. PillPack LLC, (W.D. Wash. 2021).

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