Komaiko v. Baker Technologies, Inc.

Background

Richard Komaiko and Marcie Cooperman were the named representatives in a proposed class action against Baker Technologies, Inc. They asserted claims under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and California’s Unfair Competition Law. The plaintiffs alleged that, after visiting four dispensaries that used Baker’s customer-relationship-marketing platform, they received marketing text messages sent through an automatic telephone dialing system without providing prior express written consent.

Baker moved to stay, or pause, the case until the Supreme Court decided Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants and Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid. Baker requested a stay through the end of the Supreme Court’s next term, expected in mid-2021. The opinion states that the court had previously dismissed claims against TILT for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Court’s analysis

The court explained that the TCPA restricts calls made using an automatic telephone dialing system, which the statute defines as equipment with the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers using a random or sequential number generator and to dial those numbers. The court noted that, under existing Ninth Circuit precedent, a device need only have that capacity; it need not have used the capacity to send the particular messages at issue.

The Supreme Court had already decided American Association of Political Consultants by severing the TCPA’s government-debt exception while leaving the rest of the call restriction in place. Because the government-debt exception was not involved in this case, the court concluded that decision did not affect the plaintiffs’ claims.

The remaining question concerned Duguid, which involved whether the TCPA’s definition of an automatic telephone dialing system covers equipment that can automatically dial stored numbers even without using a random or sequential number generator. Baker argued that the Supreme Court’s decision could eliminate the plaintiffs’ case because their allegations concerned texts sent from customer lists rather than randomly generated numbers. The court found that Baker had not addressed whether its software had the capacity to generate random or sequential numbers. As a result, even a Supreme Court ruling rejecting the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation regarding stored numbers would not necessarily resolve this case.

Ruling

The court held that Baker had not adequately shown that the outcome in Duguid was likely to have a significant impact on this case. It denied Baker’s motion to stay without prejudice; the conclusion section states that the motion was denied. For the next 60 days, discovery was restricted to whether the automatic telephone dialing system allegedly used to send messages to the named plaintiffs had the capacity to store and produce numbers using a random or sequential number generator. Class discovery was not permitted during that period. The parties were ordered to file a joint status report by October 12, 2020. The court stated that Baker could renew its motion for a stay if discovery showed that the device did not have that capacity.