FISHING FOR CUSTOMERS: Seafood Company Hit With Class Action Lawsuit For Alleged Violations of The Quiet Hours Provisions

Hi TCPAWorld:

Another lawsuit involving an alleged violation of 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(c)(1) (the “Quiet Hours Provision”) just got filed in the U.S. Central District of California. As with many others, this one comes from Jibrael Hindi’s office, which has filed plenty of quiet hours cases (and plenty is putting it mildly). See the link below for another blog of a case involving Jibrael’s office filing a TCPA lawsuit alleging violations of the quiet hours provision that I recently blogged about.

BITTER TASTE: Smoothie Company Hit With Class Action Lawsuit For Alleged Violations of The Quiet Hours Provision

All of these quiet hour cases that Hindi’s office is filing do smell fishy (pun may or may not be intended).

As a refresher, the “quiet hours” provision under the TCPA prohibits initiating telephone solicitations before 8:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m. local time of the called party. The DNC provision provides that, when an individual whose phone number has been registered on the national DNC registry for more than thirty days receives more than one telephone solicitations in a twelve-month period, that individual has a private right of action. See 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(5). Section 227(c)(2), on the other hand, implements additional regulations, including the Quiet Hours Provision, which provides the same private right of action for telephone solicitations made either before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., in the recipient’s local time. See 47 U.S.C. § 227(c)(2); C.F.R. § 64.1200(c)(1).

In this latest suit, Trevor Sherman v. Prime Fish LLC, DBA PRIMEFISH SEAFOOD CO, 5:26-cv-00669 (C.D. Cal. Feb 13, 2026), Trevor Sherman, alleges that since February 26, 2025, he received more than two (2) text messages from Prime Fish before the hours of 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. local time in his location.

A screenshot of the text messages are as follows:

What is interesting is that Plaintiff alleges that more than two marketing messages were sent to Plaintiff before the hour of 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. (local time at Plaintiff’s location). And there have been rulings to support the fact that a recipient’s area code determines the recipient’s time zone. See Jubb v. CHW Group Inc., No. 23CV23382 (EP) (MAH), 2025 WL 942961 (D.N.J. Mar. 28, 2025).

However, from the screenshots provided in the complaint, only exactly two marketing messages were sent before 8 a.m. (one on February 26, 2025 at 6:30 am and the other on May 30, 2025 at 7:02 am). There are no other messages shown to be sent during the quiet hours as defined in the TCPA.

Similarly to the blog above that covered the previous case that Jibrael Hindi’s office filed, Trevor Sherman is not only seeking damages for himself but he is attempting to certify a nationwide class of people who also received marketing messages from Prime Fish during the quiet hours.

The class definition 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, or anyone on Defendant’s behalf, (2) placed more than one marketing text message within any 12-month period; (3) where such marketing text messages were initiated before the hour of 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. (local time at the called party’s location).

As before, TCPA carries statutory violations of $500 per text and up to $1,500 if they were knowing and willful violations. For the two text messages that Trevor received outside the quiet hours, he could recover up to $3,000. However, that number of course could go up exponentially if the class is certified. For example, if even 50 additional people each received one marketing message outside the quiet hours, that would increase the potential liability to $26,000 if simply using the base statutory amount.

It will be interesting to see where this case goes from here as the quiet hours provision within the greater TCPA framework is still an evolving area and Jibrael’s office has filed a numerous amount of these kind of cases. Hopefully, Jibrael Hindi’s office is keeping track of all these cases that they are filing as we have seen a court previously toss a case of theirs for failing to move it forward as required by local rules.

As more cases get filed, more have the potential for important rulings and we will be sure to stay on top of all developments.

I will keep you posted TCPAWorld on any news coming from this case. Talk to you soon!

 


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