Wrong Numbers Mean Robocall Lawsuit for 24 Hour Fitness

A slew of wrong-number phone calls has landed 24 Hour Fitness USA Inc. in court to face a robocall class action lawsuit.

Plaintiff Michelle O’Hanlon alleges that shortly after getting a new cell phone number, she began receiving unsolicited phone calls on that number from 24 Hour Fitness. Every time they called, she says, she told them she was not the person they were trying to reach at that number. Yet 24 Hour Fitness kept calling her, sometimes more than once in a single hour.

O’Hanlon claims she did not consent to these phone calls in any way. She was not a customer of 24 Hour Fitness and did not have any business relationship with them, and she did not give them her new phone number. She also alleges the company made the unsolicited phone calls using an automatic telephone dialing system.

O’Hanlon filed this TCPA lawsuit as a class action lawsuit. She is proposing to apply her claims to two plaintiff classes: those who received robocalls from 24 Hour Fitness but were not the intended recipient of the calls, and those who according to 24 Hour Fitness’s own records told the company it had reached the wrong number or asked the company to stop calling their number.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act

The robocalls O’Hanlon describes could be violations of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (or TCPA). Congress enacted the TCPA in 1991 as a protection for consumers against unwanted telemarketing.

The act prohibits many practices by telemarketers such as using an automatic telephone dialing system to make calls in bulk. It also generally prevents telemarketers from using prerecorded messages in calls to residential numbers unless the party receiving the call gave the caller prior written consent.

Quick changes in technology have made TCPA compliance a tricky task. The Federal Communications Commission, the agency charged with enforcing the act, has interpreted the act to cover SMS text messages the same way it covers phone calls.

In 2013, the FCC promulgated new rules requiring telemarketers to get prior express written consent before they can use an automatic telephone dialing system to place calls to a wireless number. The same consent is also required to place calls using an artificial or prerecorded message to either residential or wireless numbers.

At the same time, the FCC eliminated an exception to the prohibition that used to allow robocalls where the parties had an “established business relationship.” With the elimination of that exception, businesses must now get prior express written consent to use robocalls to reach their existing customers.

Robocalls Class Action Lawsuits

For recipients of TCPA-violating robocalls, the act provides for statutory damages of up to $500 per call. With damage awards like that available, the implications for a TCPA class action lawsuit are huge. Telemarketers who afflict a large class of plaintiffs with multiple unwanted robocalls may find themselves on the hook for an enormous damage award.

The 24 Hour Fitness TCPA Class Action Lawsuit is Case No. 5:15-cv-01821, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern 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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