Out Of Proportion: Court Denies Discovery Requests In Putative TCPA Class Action Due Burden On Defendant

Carlton Fields
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This putative Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class action arose from alleged marketing calls by Quicken Loans (Quicken) to potential mortgage customers. After the magistrate judge granted the plaintiff’s motion to compel production of “all documents of any type or kind or records of communications received by Defendant or any third party from a proposed class member requesting that Defendant not contact that consumer or customer,” Quicken objected to the district court. Quicken challenged the plaintiff’s request that it produce every shred of documentation in any form about every do-not-call request that Quicken received between September 2012 and June 2013, which would “require collecting and reviewing at least three million e-mails, a review that might cost millions of dollars.” In addition, Quicken objected that it “lack[ed] the capability to determine readily whether a telephone number in an e-mail or Internet ‘lead’ belong[ed] to a residence, a cell phone, or a business” and that “[t]o determine if a number belong[ed] to a residence, Quicken ‘would need to [ ] obtain[ ] [information] from a third-party telephone carrier.’” Quicken substantiated its objection to plaintiff’s discovery requests by submitting employee declarations establishing that compliance with the magistrate’s order would “consume hundreds of hours of Quicken Loans’ computer and team member hours,” and would “take many months (if not longer) to complete.” Finding this persuasive, the district court found that the “class-discovery requests impose[d] on Quicken a burden disproportional to the needs of this action” and overruled the magistrate judge’s order. In addition, the court denied the plaintiff’s request for further discovery and declined to extend the filing deadline for class certification.

Nece v. Quicken Loans, Inc., No. 16-cv-2605-T-23CPT, 2018 WL 1072052, (M.D. Fla. Feb. 27, 2018).

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