Plaintiff Blasts WWF for Trying to Impugn Her as Serial Litigant
The World Wildlife Fund “regrettably” devotes “a substantial portion” of its Sept. 14 motion to dismiss plaintiff Sonya Valenzuela’s privacy complaint attacking her and her counsel, said Valenzuela’s memorandum of points and authorities Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-06112) in U.S. District Court…
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for Central California in Los Angeles in support of her opposition to the motion. Valenzuela alleges WWF invaded her privacy with its use of FullContact software to record and “deanonymize” internet protocol addresses when she used WWF’s website chat function (see 2307280032). WWF’s motion to dismiss asks the court “to draw adverse credibility inferences” about Valenzuela and her lawyer, Scott Ferrell of Pacific Trial Attorneys, on grounds that Valenzuela is a serial litigant, said her memorandum. But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently made “exceptionally clear” that WWF’s tactics are “improper,” it said. The 9th Circuit held in its Jan. 23 decision in Langer v. Kiser that it’s “necessary and desirable” for committed individuals to bring serial litigation to enforce and advance consumer protection statutes, as Valenzuela “does here,” it said. WWF should be “sternly reminded” of the 9th Circuit’s “admonition” that courts mustn’t “discredit and/or penalize a plaintiff for being a litigation tester,” it said. WWF’s “implicit challenge” to Valenzuela’s standing to sue “is without merit,” said her memorandum. Though WWF doesn’t “expressly challenge” her standing to sue, its argument that she fails to allege any injury “should be construed as making that challenge,” it said. The 9th Circuit has held that claims under the California Invasion of Privacy Act, such as those that Valenzuela raises in her complaint, “protect concrete, substantive privacy interests, which is sufficient to confer standing,” it said.