ANOTHER MARKS?: Crunch Fitness Sued in TCPA Case In Florida and I Can’t Help But Wonder….

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For denizens of TCPAWorld certain words have deeper meaning.

Among those is “Crunch.”

Instantly the word conjures memories of Marks v. Crunch, the disastrous Ninth Circuit decision that expanded the reach of the TCPA nationwide by broadly interpreting the statute’s ATDS definition to apply to any automated dialing system.

The Marks decision–which was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in Facebook was engineered by the Godfather himself–Abbas Kazerounian–the same guy who joined us in STUDIO for our podcast last week.

HERE IT IS!!!!: Episode 14 of Deserve to Win–with the Godfather Abbas Kazerounian IN STUDIO–Drops RIGHT NOW!

Timing.

The AMAZING 14th edition of Deserve to Win. For more CRITICAL content be sure to follow our INCREDIBLE YouTube channel.

But I actually prefer the story as told by Abbas’ former partner, who relates Abbas actually wanted to settle the case but the heard-headed lawyers for Crunch apparently refused to deal–resulting in a massive shellacking at the appellate court.

Josh Swigart admitting the plaintiffs wanted to settle Marks before they ended up winning the case. For more UNBLIEVEABLE content be sure to follow our INCREDIBLE YouTube channel.

Hubris, and all that.

In any event a Crunch franchise in Florida was just sued in another TCPA class action and I can’t help but wonder whether we’re going to see something fascinating arising out of this case as well.

The new Crunch case–which is brought against a Crunch franchise–seemingly lacks a bit of the intrigue of the last one, but then again the Marks case involved a whopping two text messages so you never know.

The new claim alleges the Plaintiff MONICA MERAZ was absolutely BLASTED by numerous promotional text messages. I didnt bother to count them all but it looks like about 20 texts in one month alleged in the complaint. That’s pretty high frequency and likely to get you sued.

Mercifully for Crunch the FTSA was amended to Plaintiff cannot sue under the broad dialer definition that was available under the earlier version of the statute (the texts appear to have been sent post-amendment, so Plaintiff would have had to ask for the texts to stop and then wait 15 days for another text before filing to bring a class claim.)

Here’s a quick break down of these amendments:

The Czar breaking down the new FTSA amendments. More more CRITICAL content follow our INCREDIBLE You Tube channel.

As a result the Crunch franchise being sued here is only facing a DNC claim–which is still quite dangerous but not as bad as the FTSA’s previous near “Automatic” automatic damages provision. 😉

The alleged class is:

All persons in the United States who from four years prior to the
filing of this action through the date of class certification (1)
Defendant placed more than one text message call within any 12-
month period; (2) where the person’s telephone number that had
been listed on the National Do Not Call Registry for at least thirty
days; (3) regarding Defendant’s property, goods, and/or services.

You can read the full complaint here: predocketComplaintFile (1)

Having been the goat–not the G.O.A.T., the goat–of TCPAWorld once I wonder if Crunch will be less aggressive in litigating this time around an just roll over to avoid another vicious whooping. We shall see.

We will keep an eye on this one folks.

 

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Published by Eric J. Troutman

The Czar of TCPAWorld Eric Troutman is one of the country’s prominent class action defense lawyers and is nationally recognized in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) litigation and compliance. He has served as lead defense counsel in more than 70 national TCPA class actions and has litigated nearly a thousand individual TCPA cases in his role as national strategic litigation counsel for major banks and finance companies. He also helps industry participants build TCPA-compliant processes, policies, and systems. Eric has built a national litigation practice based upon deep experience, rigorous analysis and extraordinary responsiveness. Eric and his team feel equally at home litigating multibillion dollar telecommunications class actions in federal court as they do developing and executing national litigation strategies for institutions facing an onslaught of individual TCPA matters. They thrive in each of these roles – delivering consistently excellent results – while never losing sight of the client experience. While many firms now tout TCPA expertise, Eric has been there from the beginning. He built one of the country’s first TCPA-only defense teams and began serving as national TCPA counsel for his clients nearly a decade ago. This perspective allows him to swiftly develop the right litigation strategies for dealing with recurring problems, without wasting time on tactics that are bound to fail. Eric’s rich historical perspective and encyclopedic knowledge of the TCPA landscape also make him an invaluable resource to institutional compliance teams struggling to comply with the shifting regulatory landscape. No task is too small – or too big. Indeed, Eric and his team have helped build TCPA-compliant systems and processes for some of the largest and most complex corporate entities in the country. He commonly works with in-house compliance counsel to build and implement enterprise and business-line specific TCPA solutions, performs TCPA audits and drafts and reviews proposed TCPA policies and procedures. He and his team also have the technical expertise necessary to assist call centers seeking to develop TCPA-resistant call path architecture or to modify existing telephony and software integration to better insulate from potential TCPA exposure. Eric has built a reputation for thought leadership. An avid blogger and speaker, he has been at the forefront of the industry’s effort to push for clarity and a return to sanity for the TCPA for years. He was selected to advocate for the financial services industry on important TCPA issues before the Federal Communications Commission and co-authored the nation’s only comprehensive practice guide on TCPA defense. In his spare time, Eric leads defense teams representing banks and other financial services companies in consumer finance litigation matters. He has experience representing clients in UCC, TILA, RESPA FCRA, CCRA, CLRA, FDCPA, RFDCPA and FCCPA claims, as well as in fraud and bank operations issues.

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