Popular Lead Supplier Bails Out Seller With Critical Consent Data Sufficient to Decertify Class
You know those movies where the heroes are pinned down against impossible odds and then the white knight suddenly appears and bails them out?
Well, here comes Fluent charging in to save the day.
Arguably the worst case of the entire year so far was Williams v Pillpack. There a court-certified an enormous DNC class finding that disclosures that do not actually name the seller are insufficient to meet the TCPA’ strict rules for consent to call folks on the National DNC.
At the time of the certification ruling, the Defendant was simply empty handed on any disclosures that actually named the seller of the products at issue. So it seemed as if they were doomed when the Court strongly suggested that disclosures lacking such seller identification were invalid.
But just when things were at their bleakest, Fluent came to the rescue and apparently supplied Defendant with disclosures accepted by 230,747 people that DID identify the seller by name.
So even though the Defendant hadn’t focused–at least not sufficiently–on the existence of their name within the disclosures during the lead-up to certification, Fluent was apparently doing it “right” the whole time (i.e. disclosing the name of the seller in its lead forms).
As a result, the Court decertified the case. All that work by Plaintiff was for naught.
The case is Williams v. Pillpack, LLC, CASE NO. 19-5282 RJ 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 212730 (W.D. Wash. November 3, 2021) and it is an absolutely critical ruling for those focused on DNC TCPA class litigation.
Notably, the rule of Williams remains the same as before–disclosures must identify the name of the seller of products in order to meet DNC rules. (Don’t mess this up or there will be no white knight available to save you!) It seems pretty obvious that the Defendant in Williams wasn’t requiring proper disclosures from its lead sources–but they were fortunate enough to work with a lead provider that had the foresight to provide proper disclosures to consumers even before the Williams court explained what the rules were. (And since Fluent was “ahead of the curve” on this one they get a nice plug on TCPA.World.)
Nice going guys.
