Tampa Bay Rays Must Face Advertising Text Message Class Action

A federal judge recently denied the Tampa Bay Rays’ motion to dismiss a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action lawsuit against them.

The Major League Baseball team argued in their motion for dismissal that plaintiff Chad Fernandez subscribed to the Tampa Bay Rays text message service in March 2018, meaning he could have canceled at any time.

The team claimed that there was “not one shred” of evidence that any of the Class Members had received a text from the Tampa Bay Rays without subscribing to their text messaging service.

However, U.S. District Court Judge Mary Scriven denied this argument, saying that it would require her to look outside of the complaint to dismiss the claims.

“However, at this stage in the proceedings, the court must accept plaintiff’s allegations that he did not consent to such receipt as true,” Judge Scriven said. “To the extent defendant asserts that plaintiff provided adequate consent to receive the subject text messages, it should assert that challenge as a defense in its answer and prove the defense in litigation.”

Although Judge Scriven determined that looking outside the complaint would be improper at this time, she did order Fernandez to revise his complaint and narrow his proposed Class.

She said that the wording of the original proposed Class failed to exclude those who had expressly consented to the text messages from the Tampa Bay Rays.

Currently, Fernandez has proposed a Class of “all persons within the United States who received an SMS text message, sent by or on behalf of Defendant or an affiliate, subsidiary, or agent of Defendant from the shortcode telephone number 420-86.”

According to the September 2018 Tampa Bay Rays class action lawsuit, Fernandez received several texts from the Tampa Bay Rays over the course of the spring season. Some texts included messages such as “Happy Opening Day 2018! The Rays season begins today at 4:00pm as they take on the Boston Red Sox,” and links to follow for further information. He argues that he did not consent to any of the texts he received from the MLB team.

Fernandez argued that this behavior was a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The TCPA protects consumers from unsolicited calls, text messages, and faxes which are sent without express written consent.

Formerly, regulations only existed under TCPA to protect against harassing phone calls, but changes have been made since the law’s initial passing to protect against harassing faxes and text messages.

Under the TCPA, consumers who received unsolicited text messages without prior consent may be able to collect between $500 and $1,500 per violation (i.e. per text message).

Other professional sports teams have been targeted with TCPA lawsuits in recent years. Since 2012, the Buffalo Bills, San Diego Chargers, Los Angeles Lakers, and Los Angeles Clippers have been among the many teams to face TCPA allegations.

Fernandez is represented by David P. Milian and Ruben Conitzer of Carey Rodriguez Milian Gonya LLP.

The Tampa Bay Rays TCPA Class Action Lawsuit is Fernandez v. Tampa Bay Rays Baseball Ltd., Case No. 8:18­-cv­-02251, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

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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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