So, if you haven’t met Anthony Paronich yet remind me to introduce you sometime.

In his latest “masterpiece”, he has convinced a court to utterly reject a Defendant’s motion to dismiss a TCPA suit arising out of repeat-player Andrew Perrong’s (yes, that Andrew Perrong) apparent misdeeds.

Here’s what happened (allegedly): Perrong received a cold call from somebody pitching him insurance quotes. (Why in the world anyone would be calling Perrong is an interesting question—I wonder how many phones he has now…) Perrong contends he did not visit any websites requesting this information so he supplied “distinctive mis-information” (i.e. he lied to the caller) feigning interest in car insurance and even pretended to own a 2010 Ford Explorer. Pretty specific…

Apparently Perrong shortly received an email from an insurer advising the Plaintiff that it was providing the quote because of information received from “QuoteWizard.” From this, Perrong (really Paronich) asked the court to infer that the original call must have come from Quotewizrd (the false information appears in the insurer’s email) and that the complaint’s allegations have merit. The Court agreed and, owever unsavory the tactic may seem, blessed Perrong’s use of “distinctive misinformation” in order to identify the marketer behind the initial call.

For its part the Quotewizard moved to dismiss the complaint on unspecified grounds and was sharply rebuffed by the Court, which found:

no merit whatsoever in Defendant’s argument that the complaint fails to state a viable and factually plausible claim upon which relief may be granted….

Ouch. Not just for Quotewizard but for the entire lead generation industry.

Adding to the fun, the Court also found that the complaint stated sufficient facts to demonstrate that Perrong was actually injured for purposes of Article III standing. The Court’s analysis here was rather opaque, however, and suggested that any violation of the TCPA necessarily gives rise to Article II standing, which is patently not the case. Regardless, Quotewizard is stuck in this TCPA class action that may include “millions” of alleged TCPA violations.

We’ll keep an eye on this.