So massively massively important certification ruling out. Quotewizard just got absolutely crushed in a TCPA case.
Unfortunately I am rushing to a deposition prep so I can’t spend as much time on this as warranted but everyone in the lead generation industry MUST understand this:
Mantha does not dispute that some (or, likely, virtually all) of the individuals on the proposed Class List may have signed or clicked a digital consent form or webpage as QuoteWizard asserts.19 Instead, Mantha argues that all of the consent forms proffered by QuoteWizard, including those QuoteWizard uses as examples in its Motion, see Doc. No. 348 at 35-36, suffer from the same dispositive legal defect—each fails to mention QuoteWizard by name, as Mantha alleges is required under the TCPA
Get it?
Every single class member clicked on a form consent. But because the partner page did not include QuoteWizard the court held there is a common issue as to whether the consent is valid. (Actually the court went even further and held the form was per se invalid–which probably shouldn’t have happened due to one way intervention issues.)
The result?
Class certification of claims as to 314,828 text messages sent to 66,693 telephone numbers.
I am not going to say much about this order except to point out–as an example of the sort of reasoning it is based on–that the Court removed the word “residential” from the class definition and then still found “Were the texts sent to residential numbers?” to be a common issue, which, of course, it could not be by virtue of the definitional change.
The core predominance finding is as follows:
The Court finds that Mantha has made a sufficient showing that issues common to the Class predominate over individual issues. Mantha has shown that all major issues in this case can be answered through class-wide proof. He offers a combination of Verkhovskaya’s testimony, the NDNCR residential presumption, and QuoteWizard’s telemarketing goals and internal DNC files to demonstrate the major aspects of the Class Definition, namely: (a) that the telephone numbers on the Class List were on the NDNCR; (b) that they received two or more texts within a twelve-month period…; and (c) that the texts promoted the sale of QuoteWizard’s goods or services. See Doc. No. 340 at 15-17; Doc. No. 358 at 7-16. QuoteWizard does not meaningfully contest these showings. See Doc. No. 348 at 32-39.
All bad.
$157,414,000.00 in potential damages here at $500.00 per call and over $450,000,000.00 if the damages were trebeled.
Massively important folks and a VERY clear example of what folks can expect come January if the new one-to-one rules are not followed.
Will be discussing at LeadsCon connect. Hope to see you there!
Case is Mantha v. QuoteWizard, Case 1:19-cv-12235-LTS Document 368 (D. Mass 08/16/24)
Also huge leadgen changes afoot:
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Great post!
A few points to be made…
“Mantha does not dispute that some (or, likely, virtually all) of the individuals on the proposed Class List may have signed or clicked a digital consent form or webpage as QuoteWizard asserts.”
Mantha states “some” or “may have” signed/clicked
To which you concluded “Every single class member clicked on a form consent.”
First, statistically that may be a reach, but second and most importantly by your own previous posts up to 45% of all leads are a result of lead fraud.
Re: Page 9: “Step 1: She eliminated from the call records all phone numbers that QuoteWizard obtained from its own websites. What remained were 5,090,954 sales leads/phone numbers, all of which QuoteWizard purchased from lead sources—entities that may, in turn, have purchased the numbers from other sources.”
Third: This further illustrates that Quote Wizard clearly did not actually know the specific origin of said leads it was buying, so the 45% standard industry fraud is very relevant. Even if we use a more reasonable, benefit of the doubt 30% fraud rate it still equates to 1,527,286 less class members.
Manta did not take this into account (or did and realized it could seriously jeopardize the classes proposed) besides being very hard to prove – short of calling you in as an expert witness…
Lastly, QW tried to raise an issue that the NDNC registrant was not always the class member – however as the registration process only requires a phone number and email there’s no way to easily ascertain who actually did the registration. Correctly, the court made short work of that claim.
Oh, and to save your readers the extra hassle of locating the actual document (cough, cough) here it is…
https://ecf.mad.uscourts.gov/doc1/095012489989?caseid=215474
This case commenced in 2019. It is sad, indeed, that a mega-violator like QuoteWizard can clog up the courts with their frivolous defense arguments for 5 years. Repeatedly, throughout the Order, judge Sorokin sees through QuoteWizard’s gamesmanship. QuoteWizard deserves to pay every penny of $450 Million.