Los Angeles, CA: A class action claiming violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by Twitter will be allowed to proceed, ruled District Judge Vince Chhabria. The TCPA lawsuit, filed by Beverly Nunes on June 19 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges Nunes received impersonal, promotional text messages on her new cell phone number provided by MetroPCS, several times a day from "40404," which she later learned from Twitter's SMS short code.
The lawsuit claims that although Nunes replied for the messages to stop, at least twice, she continued to receive up to four to six unauthorized text messages per day at all hours of the day and night, including message before 8 a.m. and after 9 p.m.
"At no time did plaintiff give prior express consent to Twitter to receive SMS text messages from it, let alone consent to receive autodialed telemarketing messages," the complaint states. "Plaintiff has never had a Twitter account, has never used or followed Twitter and has no pre-existing relationship with either Twitter or the advertisers for the text messages she received."
Under the TCPA, it is unlawful to use an 'automatic telephone dialing system' to 'make any call' without 'the prior express consent of the called party. Under US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit precedent, a text message is a "call" within the meaning of the TCPA.
Nunes is seeking class certification, at least $500 in damages for each alleged TCPA violation, statutory damages and post-judgment interest. She is represented by Jeffrey F. Keller, Carey G. Been and Sarah R. Holloway of Keller Grover LLP in San Francisco; John G. Jacobs and Bryan G. Kolton of Jacobs Kolton in Chicago; and David Schachman of the Law Offices of Davis Schachman in Chicago.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California case number: 3:14-cv-02843
