Southwest Airlines Hit With Wiretapping Class Action Lawsuit

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

A California man who says an airline customer service agent recorded a conversation in violation of state law has filed a Southwest Airlines wiretapping class action lawsuit alleging that the company engages in the practice on a broad scale.

California is one of many “two-party” states, meaning that both callers must be notified of the recording and provide consent. The man says that he had to ask whether the call was being recorded before being informed that it was. He alleges that he had “no reasonable expectation” of such activitiy and further “would have handled the transmission of his sensitive information with more care.”

The class action lawsuit does not mention what these details may be, but similar California wiretapping litigation usually revolves around personal identifying information like a Social Security number or credit card details. In seeking to certify a class of Californians who were affected, the class action attorney handling the case alleged that Southwest Airlines “has had a policy and a practice of recording” and that “employees and agent are directed, trained and instructed to” do so.

If so, that could violate the statutes that buttress “California’s explicit constitutional privacy provision” and that the state has continued to have a “strong and continuing interest in the full and vigorous application of the provisions of section 632 prohibiting the recording of telephone conversations without the knowledge or consent of all parties to the conversation.”

While the wiretapping law cited in this and other class action lawsuits affects all conversations, the complaint also cites a similar statute, California Penal Code 632.7, which focuses exclusively and conversations between a land-line and a cell phone, as was used by the plaintiff to take the call. As the complaint notes, “ the “confidential communication” requirement of California Penal Code § 632 is absent” from the one protecting cell phone users.

The class action lawsuit seeks $5,000 per violation per class member, injunctive relief and an order preventing Southwest Airlines from recording phone calls made to Californians on their cell phones without consent and to “maintain the confidentiality of the information” company representatives do obtain.

The man is represented by class action lawsuit attorney Matthew M. Loker of the Kazerouni Law Group APC.

The Southwest Airlines Wiretapping Class Action Lawsuit is Siani v. Southwest Airlines Co., Case No. 14-cv-06792 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.