Skip to main content
Menu Icon
Close

InfoBytes Blog

Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

District Court allows TCPA class action to proceed against auto company

Courts TCPA Robocalls Autodialer Class Action

Courts

On August 27, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California denied a car manufacturer’s motion to dismiss a class action alleging that it violated the TCPA by sending unwanted automated text messages. According to the opinion, after a consumer visited a car dealership, she allegedly received unsolicited text messages to her cell phone from the dealership. The consumer filed a proposed class action alleging the corporate car manufacturer “directed, encouraged, and authorized its dealerships [] to send text messages promoting the sale of [the] automobiles to [the consumer] and other members of the proposed Class, pursuant to a common marketing scheme” and that the text messages were transmitted using an automated telephone dialing system (autodialer) in violation of the TCPA. The manufacturer moved to dismiss the action, arguing that the plaintiff failed to allege (i) that the manufacturer sent the text messages or that the dealership sent the text messages as the manufacturer’s agent; and (ii) that the text messages were sent using an autodialer.

The court first determined that the plaintiff plausibly alleged that the manufacturer directly sent the text messages, or, in the alternative, that the dealership was acting as the manufacturer’s agent when the texts were sent. Furthermore, the plaintiff alleged that the manufacturer used hardware and software programs with the requisite capabilities to qualify as an autodialer pursuant to the 9th Circuit’s decision in Marks v. Crunch San Diego, LLC (covered by InfoBytes here).