Children’s Hospital Cellphone Lawsuit Seeks to Halt Robocalls

Two plaintiffs have filed a children’s hospital cellphone lawsuit, alleging a San Diego care provider ignored their requests to stop calling.

Plaintiffs Taneesha Crooks and Anthony Brown say defendant Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego has been using automatic equipment to place phone calls to mobile phone numbers, without the called party’s consent to be contacted that way.

The plaintiffs argue such calls violate the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA.

Brown says that sometime in or before April 2016, Rady Children’s Hospital began calling him on his cellphone about an alleged outstanding debt, according to the Children’s hospital cellphone lawsuit.

He alleges these calls were made using automatic dialing equipment and a prerecorded voice.

Brown says he had his attorney send the hospital a letter revoking any consent for the hospital to contact him that way. The letter specifically referred to the TCPA.

It also alerted the hospital that since Brown planned to initiate bankruptcy proceedings, the hospital should cease trying to contact him about the alleged debt.

Within a few days, Rady Children’s Hospital sent Brown’s attorney a confirmation that it had received the cease and desist letter. Brown says his attorney also repeated the revocation of consent in verbal conversations with clinic staff.

But despite his efforts at revoking consent, Brown says he received another robocall from Rady Children’s Hospital in December 2016.

Crooks describes a similar experience. She received a string of debt-related robocalls from Rady Children’s Hospital on her cellphone in October 2016.

Later that month, her attorney sent the hospital a cease and desist letter revoking any consent to receive robocalls. Rady Children’s Hospital nevertheless placed another autodialed call to Crooks’s cellphone early in November, she alleges.

Children’s Hospital Cellphone Lawsuit Invokes TCPA Protections

The law that Crooks and Brown are bringing their claims under provides consumers with a strong deterrent against unwanted autodialed phone calls.

Under the TCPA, callers are generally barred from making calls to persons’ cellphones using automatic dialing equipment or a prerecorded or artificial voice, unless the person being called has given the caller prior express consent to being contacted that way.

Persons who receive such calls have the option of bringing a TCPA class action lawsuit against the caller. The TCPA provides for statutory damages of $500 per violation, increasing to $1,500 for violations that the plaintiff can prove were knowing or willful.

In their Children’s Hospital cellphone lawsuit, Crooks and Brown propose to represent a plaintiff Class that would encompass all persons in the U.S. who received a non-emergency phone call from Rady Children’s Hospital that was made using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded message within the four years preceding the filing of this action.

They are asking the court for a damage award including statutory damages of up to $1,500 for each phone call that violates the TCPA. They also seek an injunction prohibiting Rady Children’s Hospital from making such phone calls in the future.

The Rady Children’s Hospital Cellphone Lawsuit is Taneesha Crooks, et al. v. Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, Case No. 3:17-cv-0246, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

Join a Free TCPA Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you were contacted on your cell phone by a company via an unsolicited text message (text spam) or prerecorded voice message (robocall), you may be eligible for compensation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

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