iWell its that time again.
Time for us to be bombarded by texts and calls from folks looking for your vote, or looking for money from you to support this candidate or that cause.
And just behind all those phone calls is an equally impressive barrage of TCPA class action lawsuits against candidates, parties, and committees.
Today we have a class action lawsuit filed against the Republican National Congressional Committee.
Apparently they blasted a bunch of folks–“Trump patriots”– with text messages that Pelosi is about to do something they wouldn’t like. And they asked for some money to stop it from happening.
Well I’m ready to write a check…
But apparently not everyone who received the texts was a Trump patriot, and that would include the Plaintiff–a guy named Michael Anthony.
The suit alleges the robotexts were sent using an ATDS and seeks millions of dollars against the RNCC.
The classes include:
Autodialed Text Class: All persons in the United States who (1) from the date
four years prior to the filing of this Complaint through the date notice is sent to the
class members; (2) Defendant (or a third person acting on behalf of Defendant)
placed at least one text message call; (3) to the person’s cellular telephone number;
(4) for the purpose of promoting Defendant’s political agendas or to solicit
political donations; (5) using the same dialing equipment that was used to place
the text message call to Plaintiff; and (6) for whom Defendant claims it obtained
prior express consent in the same manner as Defendant claims it supposedly
obtained prior express consent to place text message calls to the Plaintiff, or for
whom it did not obtain prior express written consent.
Autodialed Stop Text Class: All persons in the United States who (1) from the
date four years prior to the filing of this Complaint through the date notice is sent
to the class members; (2) Defendant (or a third person acting on behalf of
Defendant) placed at least one text message call; (3) to the person’s cellular
telephone number; (4) for the purpose of promoting Defendant’s political agendas
or to solicit political donations; (5) using the same dialing equipment that was used
to place the text message call to Plaintiff; (6) after the person requested that the
text message calls stop.
Intrusion Upon Seclusion Class: All persons in the State of Pennsylvania who
(1) from the date one year prior to the filing of this Complaint through the date
notice is sent to the class members; (2) Defendant (or a third person acting on
behalf of Defendant) placed text message calls; (3) to the person’s cellular
telephone number; (4) for the purpose of promoting Defendant’s political
agendas or to solicit political donations; (5) for whom Defendant claims it
obtained prior express consent in the same manner as Defendant claims it
supposedly obtained prior express consent to place text message calls to the
Plaintiff, or for whom it did not obtain prior express written consent; and (6)
either the text message calls were placed after 9:00 p.m. or the recipient received
more than fifty (50) text messages from Defendant.
This isn’t the first time Republican National committees have been sued under the TCPA. But the Senatorial committee was successful in defeating such a case this year.
The Democratic national committee, however, famously failed to respond to a TCPA suit and had a judgment entered against it in Kansas for $60k.
As a reminder, it is ILLEGAL to engage in campaign fundraising or to send campaign-related messages using regulated technology to cell phones without consent.
And its kind of dumb too…
