Jury Trial in TCPA Class Action vs. LendingTree to Last 5-7 Days: Joint Report
The parties in plaintiff Paul Sapan’s class action against LendingTree for alleged Telephone Consumer Protection Act wrongdoing (see 2301170071) anticipate a jury trial on Sapan’s claims should last five to seven days, said their joint scheduling and Rule 26(f) report…
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Thursday (docket 8:23-cv-00071) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Santa Ana. The report cautioned the court that that was the parties’ best trial-length estimate “at this early point in advance of discovery and motion practice.” Sapan alleges LendingTree or its agents transmitted 11 live telemarketing calls to his home phone to a number on the national do not call registry. Sapan believes “he will be able to prove that the calls at issue were authorized, directed or ratified” by LendingTree or that the calls were made on LendingTree’s behalf, said the report. LendingTree’s defense asserts neither it nor any entity acting on its behalf or with its express or implied consent “placed any of the calls at issue,” it said. LendingTree, like Sapan, “was the recipient of a phone call” connecting Sapan to LendingTree, it said. Sapan can’t prove “the entity that called him was acting as LendingTree’s agent,” it said. In the TCPA “context,” courts have said a company isn’t liable under the TCPA “merely because calls were made on its behalf or to its benefit,” said the report. A plaintiff must prove “traditional agency factors,” that a defendant “authorized, directed, or ratified the making of the calls at issue,” it said. Sapan “can prove no such thing against LendingTree,” it said.