Insurance Agency Runs ‘Calling Campaign’ in ‘Plain Violation’ of TCPA: Class Action
The Boost Health Insurance Agency runs a “campaign” to market its services through telemarketing calls by contacting numbers on the national do not call registry and using a prerecorded message in “plain violation” of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, alleged…
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plaintiff Arthur Cochran’s class action Tuesday (docket 4:23-cv-00473) in U.S. District Court for Northern Florida in Tallahassee. The Florida resident also alleges that Boost uses automated systems to make telemarketing calls into Florida, and that by doing so, it also has violated “the provisions” of the Florida Telephone Solicitations Act. The recipients of Boost’s “illegal” calls, which include Cochran and members of his proposed class, are entitled to damages under the TCPA and FTSA, it said. Because the technology Boost uses enables it to make calls en masse, “the appropriate vehicle for their recovery is a class action lawsuit,” it said. Cochran listed his residential cellphone number on the national DNC registry in January 2022, said his complaint. Despite that, he received at least two telemarketing calls from Boost in July, it said. Boost’s conduct has harmed Cochran and all members of his class “because their privacy has been violated," "they were annoyed and harassed,” and “use of their telephone power and network bandwidth and the intrusion" on their phones prevented the devices "from receiving legitimate communications,” the complaint said. The certification of Cochran’s claims for class-wide treatment is “appropriate” because Cochran “can prove the elements of his claims on a class-wide basis using the same evidence as would be used to prove those elements in individual actions alleging the same claims,” it said. Class members are identifiable through phone records and phone number databases “that will be obtained through discovery,” it said. Based on the automated nature of Boost’s “calling campaign,” there likely are “hundreds of class members,” and individual joinder of those individuals is “impracticable,” it said.