Pizza chain Papa John's is facing a $250 million class-action lawsuit for allegedly spamming customers with hundreds of thousands of illegal text messages.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Seattle on Monday, contends that Papa John's violated state and federal law by sending out 500,000 unwanted text messages advertising the chain's products in early 2010. The messages, blasted out to customers through mass texting service OnTime4U, offered deals on Papa John's pizza.
"After I ordered from Papa John's, my telephone started beeping with text messages advertising pizza specials," Erin Chutich, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement. "Papa John's never asked permission to send me text message advertisements. Hopefully, this will be an important victory for consumers. Our lawsuit is about keeping spam from spreading from our email to our cell phones."
OnTime4U, which sent the messages on behalf of Papa John's franchisees, is also listed as a defendant in the case. There is no evidence that Papa John's contracted directly with OneTime4U, but the suit alleges that the company encouraged its franchisees to use the marketing firm's services.
Franchisees allegedly gave the marketing firm lists of telephone numbers of people who purchased pizza without getting consent from those customers first. OnTime4U then removed landline numbers from the list and blasted the remaining cell phones with text-based advertising.
In April 2010, Papa John's sent a memo to all franchisees and corporate stores noting it had been receiving complaints from customers about the text messages. The memo noted that "sending unsolicited messages to mobile devices is most likely illegal." The company then formally disallowed the practice, directing franchisees to end their business relationship with OnTime4U and have the firm delete any Papa John's customer information from its systems.
The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991 bars companies from sending text message advertisements to customers that have not specifically opted into the service. Attorneys representing the plaintiffs said this could be one of the largest damages awards ever recovered under the TCPA. Papa John's customers could be awarded $500 or more in damages for each illegal text message.
For its part, Papa John's said its corporate arm is not subject to the lawsuit because the messages were sent by a third-party vendor and a small number of franchisees, according to a report from CNN Money.
The company also said it plans to appeal the federal judge's decision to certify the case.
"We don't agree with it and will continue to aggressively defend it," said Caroline Oyler, Papa John's head of legal affairs. "We'll continue to litigate the case and defend the lawsuit and move to have it dismissed."
View the Original article