On Thursday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Dean E. Weisgold P.C. lodged a class action against Allied Medical Associates P.C., physician Bryan H. Ehrlich, and additional unknown defendants over allegations that the defendants violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) through purportedly faxing unsolicited advertisements.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff received a fax from the defendants in early December 2020 that marketed the defendants’ physical rehabilitation services. The plaintiff alleged that it did not consent to receiving such faxes and that there was no clear way to opt out of receiving any more potential faxes from the defendants.
Pursuant to the TCPA, entities may not send gratuitous promotional materials via fax without the recipient’s prior consent, and when an entity does send an advertisement through fax, there must be a “clearly and conspicuously displayed” opt-out notice.
The complaint argued that “(u)nsolicited faxes damage their recipients” through wasting “the use of its fax machine, paper, and ink toner” and “the recipient’s valuable time that would have been spent on something else.” Additionally, according to the plaintiff, such faxes “tie up the telephone lines, prevent fax machines from receiving authorized faxes, prevent their use for authorized outgoing faxes, cause undue wear and tear on the recipients’ fax machines, and require additional labor to attempt to discern the source and purpose of the unsolicited message.”
The plaintiff emphasized that the lack of an opt-out notice on the faxed advertisement was a key part of the burden experienced by the putative class.
“If senders do not clearly and conspicuously provide the opt-out content to the recipients, then the senders fail to enable the recipients with the appropriate information to stop the burden imposed by this form of advertisement,” according to the complaint.
Claiming that there have been more than 39 other recipients of unsolicited faxes advertising the defendants’ services with no scrutable way to opt out, the plaintiff proposed that the class include these purported recipients and requested punitive and monetary damages, among other relief.
Cafferty Clobes Meriwether & Sprengel LLP is representing the plaintiff and proposed class.