Driver Seeks Class Cert. in Sirius XM Privacy Rights Lawsuit

The plaintiff in a Sirius XM privacy rights class action lawsuit has moved for Class certification at the same time Sirius is asking for judgment in its favor.

Plaintiff James Andrews filed a motion for Class certification on Monday, asking the court to let him represent a Class of vehicle owners whose motor vehicle records were allegedly accessed by Sirius XM in violation of federal law.

Andrews claims Sirius XM illegally obtained personal information on persons who recently purchased vehicles equipped with Sirius XM radios. He claims the company used that information for targeted marketing, sending letters and making phone calls directed at the vehicle owners to offer them Sirius XM radio subscriptions.

According to this Sirius XM class action lawsuit, Andrews received eight letters and one phone call from Sirius after he bought a used vehicle from a California dealership. Even though Andrews had never subscribed to Sirius XM radio before, the letters referred to him as a “former listener” and invited him to resume his previous subscription.

Andrews believes the previous owner of the vehicle had a Sirius account connected with the vehicle. He believes Sirius XM acquired his address by illegally accessing his state motor vehicle records.

Andrews claims Sirius XM violated the Driver Privacy Protection Act, a federal law that allows third parties to access individuals’ driving records only for a limited number of specific purposes. Using the information to send marketing letters or make marketing phone calls is not one of the permitted purposes.

The DPPA allows a plaintiff to sue for liquidated damages of $2,500 or for actual damages in excess of that amount.

On the same day Andrews filed his motion for certification, Sirius XM asked the court to put an end to the entire matter with a judgment in Sirius’ favor.

Sirius XM says it obtained the records at issue not from protected motor vehicle records but from the dealerships that sell Sirius XM radio-equipped vehicles and from the U.S. Postal Service’s National Change of Address database.

Neither the dealerships’ records nor those of the Postal Service are covered by the DPPA, Sirius says. The company argues DPPA protections apply only to state department of motor vehicles records.

The company says it has explained the sources of its records to Andrews’ attorneys and has documented those sources in declarations and related documents. Andrews’ claim that Sirius XM acquired records from an unauthorized source is simply an “incorrect and unsupported guess,” the company asserts.

If certified by the court, Andrews’ proposed plaintiff Class will represent all U.S. residents who within the past four years were sent a marketing letter or who received a marketing phone call from Sirius XM using personal information obtained from the dealership that sold the vehicle in question to the Class Member.

Andrews is represented by attorneys Jeffrey Wilens of Lakeshore Law Center and by Jeffrey P. Spencer of The Spencer Law Firm.

The Sirius XM Unauthorized Driver Records Access Class Action Lawsuit is Andrews v. Sirius XM Radio Inc., Case No. 5:17-cv-01724-PA-AFM, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.