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At the outset of one of his most well-known novels, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Earnest Hemingway quoted part of a meditation from Seventeenth Century poet John Donne (from which the book is titled):

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. (Emphasis added.)

Based on a recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decision, however, it appears that the Commission believes that the federal government, in fact, is an island entire of itself. Despite tightening regulations over the years to limit the ability of companies to make robocalls, the FCC, on July 5, 2016, issued a ruling that exempted robocalls from the federal government from Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) coverage. The FCC thinks it knows what kind of calls you like, and wants to make sure you get them.Continue Reading For Whom The TCPA Bell Tolls . . . Not the Federal Government Says the FCC

Any company that is regulated and examined by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) knows how expansive the Bureau’s reach is. Despite challenges in the Congress and the courts, the CFPB is not slowing down. On May 5, 2016, the CFPB released a notice of proposed rulemaking that would ban consumer financial companies from using mandatory pre-dispute arbitration clauses in consumer financial contracts (see our more detailed discussion here).

Members of Venable’s CFPB practice group will host a complimentary webinar on June 15, 2016 to discuss the current state of the rulemaking process and outline what your company will need to know about what’s ahead. Sign up to attend the webinar here.Continue Reading The CFPB’s Proposed Rule Will End Mandatory Arbitration Clauses

Chobani
Image by theimpulsivebuy [CC BY-SA 2.0] via flickr

The pitter patter of class action footsteps that food companies hear may have gotten a bit quieter, at least for now, based upon a Ninth Circuit decision in Kane v. Chobani this week.  The lawsuit centers on Chobani’s use of the terms “evaporated cane juice” and “only natural ingredients” on its yogurt labels.  According to the plaintiffs, the yogurt included color additives that allegedly did not qualify as “natural.”  The plaintiffs further argued that Chobani’s use of “evaporated cane juice” is simply code for sugar, and Chobani therefor misled them about the healthiness of its products.  In oral arguments Chobani argued that the term “evaporated cane juice” fully complies with federal regulations and that “sugar” would be an inaccurate term because it indicates a refined sugar, while Chobani’s ingredient is not a refined sugar.  The District Court dismissed the case, holding that plaintiffs had failed to plead sufficiently reliance upon the allegedly misleading terms.  Plaintiffs appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Stays Class Action Food Labeling Lawsuit Until the FDA Completes Review

In a hotly anticipated decision, the Supreme Court yesterday refrained from permitting defendants to end class action cases by offering to make named plaintiffs whole by paying their damages before plaintiffs move for class certification.

In Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U.S. ___ (2016), Jose Gomez alleged that Campbell-Ewald violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by sending him unsolicited advertisements by text message.  Campbell-Ewald was contracted by the United States Navy to orchestrate a recruiting campaign, which included text message marketing to potential recruits who had “opted in” to receiving marketing solicitations.  Gomez, who had not “opted in,” received at least one such text message.  Relying on the statutory damages available under the TCPA, Gomez pursued damages and injunctive relief on his own behalf and as part of a class action.Continue Reading Court Rules Settlement Offers Can’t Kill Class Actions

Last month, we blogged about the U.S. District Court for Northern District of California’s recent decision entered in Luna v. Shac, LLC, — F. Supp. 3d –, No. 14-cv-00607 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 19, 2015), which awarded summary judgment to the defendant-gentleman’s club in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) class action.  You can read that post here.  In short, the court held that the defendant’s dialing/texting platform did not constitute a prohibited autodialer under the TCPA in the wake of the FCC’s July 2015 omnibus TCPA Order – i.e., (1) adding numbers to a database (either by manually typing the phone numbers, or by uploading or cutting-and-pasting from an existing list of number); (2) drafting the content of the text messages for each campaign; and (3) selecting the numbers to call and clicking “send” (one-click) to transmit the messages–because of the level of human intervention in dialing. Notably, summary judgment briefing in Luna wrapped up before the FCC Order was released, but the plaintiff noticed the Order as supplemental authority in opposition to the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. The defendant responded explaining why the FCC Order did not pose an obstacle to summary judgment.  The court also cited the Order in its decision.
Continue Reading Postscript to Luna v. Shac LLC: Human Intervention Still Precludes Finding That Strip Club’s Dialing Platform Constitutes an Autodialer Under the TCPA

By charlieanders2 [CC BY-SA 2.0 via flickr]
By charlieanders2 [CC BY-SA 2.0 via flickr]
In the most recent installment of the Batman movie franchise, The Dark Knight Rises, Anne Hathaway’s character, Selina Kyle, whispers ominously into Bruce Wayne’s ear, “There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne.  You and your friends better batten down the hatches . .…

In a big win for Yahoo!, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California denied certification of a putative class in a suit alleging that Yahoo! violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”).  The litigation arose out of claims that Yahoo! spam-texted consumers by allowing its users to send text messages from a computer to a mobile phone.  In order to send a text message via Yahoo! Messenger, the user must either select the recipient’s name from the user’s Yahoo! contact list or manually input the recipient’s mobile number in the Messenger window.  Yahoo!, then, automatically checks to see if anyone has used its Messenger service to send a message to that mobile number.  If not, Yahoo! sends a “Welcome Message” to the recipient providing a general explanation of the feature.  Yahoo! users agree to the terms of service, and over the years some of these terms of service have included consent for Yahoo! to send text messages.  The plaintiffs claimed that the “Welcome Message” violates the TCPA prohibition on sending automated text messages through an “automatic telephone dialing system” without the recipient’s consent.
Continue Reading Yahoo! Says Yahoo! In Defeating Class Certification in TCPA Texting Case

We all love a good bargain, but sometimes a good deal seems too good to be true.  In 2011, Cynthia Spann went bargain-hunting at a California J.C. Penney, and walked out convinced that she had saved over 30%.  However, she later discovered the products she bought at a “bargain” price had never really been sold at full price.  As we have written previously, pricing and discounting claims are a frequent target of FTC enforcement actions, competitive challenges at the National Advertising Division, and plaintiffs’ attorneys.   After learning about the alleged false discounting, Spann brought a class action on February 8, 2012, alleging violations of California’s Unfair Competition Law, California’s False Advertising Law, and California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act.  On May 18, 2015, the United States District Court for the Central District of California granted certification of the class action, serving as a timely reminder for retailers and businesses everywhere that businesses must carefully monitor pricing practices to ensure compliance with state and federal law regarding false and deceptive pricing.

According to Spann’s complaint, J.C. Penney’s false advertising campaign was “massive, years-long, pervasive[,] [and] consistent across all” private and exclusive brands of apparel and accessories.  The essential aspects of the advertising campaign are familiar to many American shoppers: J.C. Penney stores and websites would feature both an “original” or “regular” price and a substantial dollar/percentage discount, reinforcing the message that the customer had received a bargain by including a line for “Total Savings Today” on receipts.  As the FTC notes in its Guides Against Deceptive Pricing, this is a totally legitimate form of advertising as long as the original/regular price is genuine; that is, “the actual, bona fide price at which the article was offered to the public on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period of time.”  However, if “the former price being advertised is not bona fide but fictitious”—in other words, if an “inflated price was established for the purpose of enabling the subsequent offer of a large reduction”—then “the ‘bargain’ being advertised is a false one.”  California law is also rather clear on this topic:  “No price shall be advertised as a former price of any advertised thing, unless the alleged former price was the prevailing market price as above defined within three months next immediately preceding the publication of the advertisement.”Continue Reading Court Grants Class Cert. in Deceptive Pricing Action Against Clothing Retailer

On June 19, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued its decision in In re GNC Corporation; Triflex Products Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation (No. II), — F.3d –, No. 14-1724, 2015 WL 3798174 (4th Cir. June 19, 2015), handing a significant victory not just to the defendants in that multidistrict false advertising class action litigation, but to dietary supplement manufacturers nationwide that face false advertising claims brought under state consumer protection laws.  More specifically, the Fourth Circuit’s decision made clear that, in order for a false advertising case to proceed beyond the dismissal stage, the complaint must allege that there is not a single qualified expert who would opine that the challenged representation is truthful.  The ruling should prove a useful tool to any dietary supplement manufacturer finding itself the defendant in a class action alleging unfair, deceptive, or misleading advertising or marketing.

In In re GNC Corporation, the plaintiff-consumers had purchased glucosamine- and chondroitin-based joint health supplements manufactured and sold by the defendants, GNC Corporation and Rite Aid Corporation.  The defendants alternately advertised on the supplements’ labels that the products “promote[] joint mobility & flexibility”; “protect[] joints from wear and tear of exercise”; “rebuild[] cartilage and lubricate[] joints”; “promote[] joint health”; and provide “[m]aximum strength joint comfort.”  The product label for GNC’s “Triflex Fast-Acting” product also represented that the supplement was “[c]linically studied” by means of a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial, which concluded that the supplement was “shown to improve joint comfort and function.”  The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants violated the false advertising statutes and consumer protection acts of California, Illinois, Florida, Ohio, and New York by marketing their supplements as promoting joint health, even though many scientific studies purportedly have shown that glucosamine and chondroitin are “no more effective than placebo” in providing the advertised health benefits.  In essence, the plaintiffs asserted that the various health representations made by the defendants were false because the vast weight of competent and reliable scientific evidence indicate that glucosamine and chondroitin do not provide the promised health benefits. 
Continue Reading “Judicially Found to Help Prevent False Advertising Litigation”: Fourth Circuit Clarifies Requirements for Pleading a Dietary Supplement False Advertising Claim

While plaintiffs’ attorneys seek to streamline the filing of class actions under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), a recent court decision serves as a reminder that there are clear limits to a plaintiffs’ ability to recover statutory damages under a theory of vicarious liability. On May 18, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California awarded summary judgment to defendant UTC Fire & Security Americas Corporation, Inc. (“UTC”), finding the security equipment manufacturer could not be held vicariously liable for the actions of its authorized dealers under any theory of agency. The decision marks a win for companies that operate using a dealer or retailer network to distribute their products, in a legal area that is a noted favorite of class action lawyers, and provides an example for how companies may avoid vicarious liability under the TCPA by carefully structuring the way in which they authorize resellers to use and advertise their product.
Continue Reading Security Equipment Manufacturer Secure in Its TCPA Defense: Court Finds Company Not Vicariously Liable for Authorized Dealer’s Alleged TCPA Violations