PETCO Class Action Alleges California’s Privacy Protection Law Violated

A class action lawsuit alleges that PETCO, doing business as the company Doctors Foster and Smith, violated California consumer information protection law requiring a business to disclose, upon a consumer’s request, how that consumer’s personal information has been shared.

Plaintiff David Gamez claims that has been a customer at PETCO, and in his capacity as a consumer, was notified that the company shares personal information with affiliates and third parties for the purpose of direct marketing.

Gamez reports that he made multiple inquiries to PETCO to determine how his information was shared, but was denied the information.

The PETCO class action lawsuit claims that PETCO’s act of denying him this information violated California’s “Shine the Light” law (STLL), that is designed to protect consumer information and lend transparency to how the information is used.

The plaintiff allges that the law has a “Right to Know” statute that requires certain businesses to “inform consumers, upon written request, whether and to what extent a business has utilized or shared a consumer’s ‘personal information’ within the last year.”

Gamez’s PETCO information class action lawsuit claims that he disclosed his personal information to PETCO and Doctors Foster and Smith around May 9, 2018, when doing business with the company as a consumer. He says that based on this transaction, his relationship with the company falls under the STLL regulations.

The PETCO STLL class action lawsuit claims that not only did PETCO refuse to share the information he requested and was legally entitled to, the company then used his personal information to send him “unwanted commercial communication.”

Gamez seeks to represent himself and all similarly affected consumers. The STLL regulation requires businesses to pay $500 per negligent violation of the regulations, and $3,000 per willful or reckless violation of the regulation.

Based on these parameters, Gamez seeks statutory damages of $3,000 per putative Class Member, as well as all other possible damages, including punitive damages and prejudgment interest. He also seeks an injunction against PETCO to require the company to comply with STLL regulations.

On the importance of the “Shine the Light” law, California Senator Liz Figueroa wrote that “Transparency is the touchstone of consumer confidence in information handling… Because privacy is, by definition, so intensely personal, for a consumer to make a rational and informed and personal choice to opt in, to opt out, or simply take their business elsewhere, the consumer must know the ‘who, what, where and when’ of how a business handles personal information.”

Allegedly, PETCO’s refusal of Gamez’s request to know how his information was being used denied him the ability to make informed choices about how he shared his information and where he should take his business, a right which is afforded to him under California’s “Shine the Light” law.

Gamez is represented by Scott J. Ferrell of Pacific Trial Attorneys.

The PETCO Consumer Information Class Action Lawsuit is David Gamez v. Petco Animal Supplies Stores Inc., et al., Case No. 2:18-cv-05530-RGK-JC, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.