Timothy Aguilar has now received more than 1,000 illegal “robo/nuisance, spoofed, artificial bot voice telemarketing calls,” up from more than 700 in October, said his amended Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint Wednesday (docket 4:23-cv-03988) in U.S. District Court for Southern Texas in Houston. Aguilar's number has been listed on the national do not call registry since about 2011, it said. The case evolves from a campaign by Network Insurance Senior Health Division (NISHD) and Berken Media to market their services through pre-recorded and “spoofed” telemarketing calls “in plain violation of the TCPA.” Bandwidth, Peerless Networks and Onvoy have “initiated and or facilitated” the calls with their VoIP call services technology “to further NISHD’s and Berken’s telemarketing onslaught of robocalls” to Aguilar “on a consistent & daily basis,” said the pro se plaintiff. “A percentage” of the spoofed robocalls placed to Aguilar’s cellphone number on behalf of Berken Media and NISHD have the same or similar “marketing phone script” and prerecorded messages attributable to Berken and NISHD, with the “supporting role of the calling platforms of Onvoy, Bandwidth and Peerless,” the complaint said. The Pasadena, Texas, resident has been “harassed, cussed at" and victimized by the robocalls that solicited car warranties, medical and diabetic services, final expense services, home solar products and accident claim legal services, alleges the complaint. The amended complaint identified Berken as responsible for prerecorded robocalls for accident claim legal services. Aguilar has recorded many of the robocalls, he said. The plaintiff added a claim in the amended complaint, bringing the number of counts to five, for calls made to his cellphone using an artificial or prerecorded voice. Other claims are violations of the TCPA for using an automatic telephone dialing system and for calling a number on the national DNC list, violation of the Texas Business and Commercial Code and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Jan. 4, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
The “fundamental flaw” in plaintiff Gabriel Nater’s Oct. 27 class action alleging that he received a prerecorded call from State Farm without his prior express consent, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, is that the insurance company didn’t place that call (see 2310300003), said State Farm’s memorandum of law Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-01408) in U.S. District Court for Central Illinois in Peoria in support of its motion to dismiss Nater’s complaint. Nater’s allegations that State Farm made the call are “entirely conclusory,” said the memorandum. “No facts are alleged to support that assertion,” it added. To the contrary, the alleged facts suggest that the entity making the call was an "unnamed third-party lead generator,” it said. As such, Nater’s attempt to hold State Farm “directly liable” for the call fails, it said. Though a defendant, in some circumstances, “may be held vicariously liable under the TCPA for calls made by some third party on their behalf,” Nater’s complaint “makes no attempt to plead any such vicarious liability claim,” it said. The TCPA prohibition at issue here also applies “only to residential telephone lines, rather than business lines,” it said. Nater’s failure to allege that the called number is on a residential line “provides additional grounds for dismissal,” it said.
U.S. District Judge Otis Wright for Central California in Los Angeles granted Grindr's motion to dismiss with prejudice and without leave to amend plaintiff John Doe’s child sex trafficking complaint against the operator of the dating app for LGBTQ+ people, said the judge's signed Dec. 28 order (docket 2:23-cv-02093). “The facts of this case are indisputably alarming and tragic,” it said. “No one should endure” what plaintiff Doe has. But “after careful review and consideration of the facts and applicable law,” the court "ultimately determines" that Doe’s claims are "precluded" by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, it said. In spring 2019, Doe was 15 and lived in a small town in Nova Scotia, where he “knew he was gay but was too ashamed to tell his parents,” said the order. “Seeking queer community,” Doe installed the Grindr app, misrepresented that he was older than 18 and created a user profile, it said. Grindr didn’t verify Doe’s age, it said. Over a four-day period, the app matched Doe with four “geographically proximate adult men,” it said. Doe and the men exchanged direct messages, personal information and sexually explicit photos, it added. Doe met each man and was sexually assaulted and raped, it said. After Doe’s mother confronted him, Doe told her he was on Grindr, that the app matched him with adult men and that they had raped him, it said. Three of the men are in prison for sex crimes, while the fourth remains at large, it said.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Jan. 3, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
Notices from Citrix and Comcast to customers about an Oct. 10 data breach “failed to provide basic details,” said a new class action Wednesday (docket 0:24-cv-60008) in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in Fort Lauderdale.
The Commerce Department made preliminary affirmative antidumping duty determinations that imports of paper shopping bags from Cambodia (A-555-002), China (A-570-152), Colombia (A-301-805), India (A-533-917), Malaysia (A-557-825), Portugal (A-471-808), Taiwan (A-583-872), Turkey (A-489-849) and Vietnam (A-552-836), are being sold in the U.S. at less than fair value. The agency will generally impose AD cash deposit requirements on entries of subject merchandise beginning on Jan. 3, 2024, though cash deposit requirements take effect retroactively for all Vietnamese companies, and some Cambodian, Taiwanese and Chinese companies, beginning on Oct. 5, 2023.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Jan. 2, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
Three John Does defrauded plaintiff Phoebe Lee in a trading scheme linked to an online cryptocurrency website, Lee's fraud complaint alleged Friday (docket 2:23-cv-02008) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website Dec. 29, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.