Everyone remember that Alvarez v. Sunshine Life & Health Advisors LLC putative Florida Telephone Solicitation Act (FTSA) litigation we’ve covered? You know, the one where the plaintiff’s counsel argued that the FTSA extends to text messages, whereas its federal counterpart, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), “doesn’t even regulate text messages”? It’s the case where the state trial court (wrongly) denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss—the first dismissal decision in an FTSA case, although it had virtually nothing to do with the substance of the statute—finding that the receipt of two allegedly unsolicited, autodialed marketing text messages was enough to confer standing under Florida law. Yeah, that Alvarez case.
Well, several weeks ago, the parties went to mediation. On June 13, 2022, the mediator filed his mediation disposition report noting that a settlement agreement had been reached. While other FTSA cases have settled on individual bases (a lot of them, in fact), word around the campfire is that the forthcoming settlement in Alvarez has been reached on a class basis. If this is true, it appears that this will be the first class settlement in an FTSA case. The parties apparently are in the process of formalizing the settlement agreement, and the motion for preliminary approval should be filed in relatively short order. Once that motion and the class settlement agreement hit the public docket, we will update this post with the details. So, stay tuned.