An ATDS Win for Rojas Leads To Lawsuit for Nikki Haley

Perrong Law has represented Jorge Rojas before. Great guy. An air traffic controller that sued the government multiple times and also a TCPA Plaintiff.

Well, Rojas recently claimed victory against a political party called the First Party for Bolingbrook claiming that automated political texts he received from them were sent using an ATDS. The Court’s opinion is quite well reasoned.

The First Party for Bolingbrook case involved political text messages which Defendants argued were personalized using the Plaintiff’s name, were sent from a local phone number, and did not “produce a telephone number using a random or sequential number generator.” In its opinion, the Court denied the motion and ruled that an ATDS not only includes equipment which randomly or sequentially generates telephone numbers itself, but also includes “autodialers that capture not just a random phone number but also the name of the account holder and use a local phone number as the source.”

Here’s the best part through: the Court also held that personalizing a text message is not sufficient to overcome ATDS allegations. It said the fact the messages included the “Plaintiff’s name” was insufficient to defeat other well-pled allegations supporting ATDS use, including the fact that the calls otherwise had generic content, which were sufficient to push the “TCPA claim into the realm of plausibility.” The Court also cited favourably to language on the website of the telephone system’s manufacturer, which included “references to the use of, or capacity to use, an ATDS, thus making it plausible that an ATDS system was used.” 

Rojas has wasted no time in benefitting from his win in this case. Just yesterday, he sued failed presidential candidate Nikki Haley for, you guessed it, illegal robotexts. Complaint is here. We’ll continue to talk about this as the case develops, TCPATalk.