A District Court judge in Illinois has certified a class in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawsuit against a bank that allegedly made calls to the plaintiff using an automated telephone dialing system without obtaining consent and then continued to make calls after the plaintiff asked the defendant not to contact him anymore.
The background: The lawsuit stems from calls the plaintiff received between January 2020 and January 2022, despite having placed his number on the National Do Not Call Registry years earlier.
- According to the complaint, the calls were directed to someone with a name — Needle Dee, if you can believe that’s real — the plaintiff never used, and when he attempted to identify the source, he discovered the calls were connected to the bank through a third-party marketing company.
- Even after instructing the bank to stop contacting him, the plaintiff received multiple additional calls.
- The plaintiff maintains he never gave consent for such communications, nor did he have any relationship with the bank or its affiliates that would justify them.
- He sought to represent a nationwide class of consumers who were on the Registry and still received calls, as well as a subclass of individuals whose calls were transferred directly to the bank.
The ruling: Judge LaShonda A. Hunt of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois certified both the proposed class and the subclass, rejecting the defendant’s arguments that questions of consent, standing, and vicarious liability required individualized inquiries. The court concluded that the conduct alleged — unsolicited calls to DNC-listed numbers — presented common legal and factual issues suitable for class-wide resolution.
- “The harm lies in the unwanted contact itself,” Judge Hunt wrote, noting that even those who engaged with the calls still suffered a concrete injury under the TCPA.
- The defendants had also challenged the admissibility of expert testimony, but the judge declined to exclude either side’s expert, ruling that disputes over methodology or interpretation went to the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility.
- The decision clears the way for the case to proceed on behalf of more than 2.2 million potential class members and underscores the continued scrutiny courts place on unwanted calls and telemarketing practices.
