California resident Dave Vaccaro filed a complaint against OpenTable Inc. on Monday for alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The purportedly illegal conduct occurred when the online reservation platform “negligently contact[ed]” Vaccaro on his cell phone.
According to the Central District of California complaint, Vaccaro received an unsolicited text message from OpenTable in late May. The message was reportedly from a “short code phone number” owned or controlled by the defendant.
The message, and several subsequent ones, regarded a restaurant reservation made at a dining establishment in Hawaii. The communications included an initial welcome message to which responding “STOP,” was an option the plaintiff exercised.
Instead of ceasing communications as promised, the defendant reportedly sent the plaintiff two additional text messages about his purported request to join the waiting list for the Waikiki restaurant. The filing claims that the messages arrived despite the fact that the plaintiff was never an OpenTable customer nor provided his phone number to the company.
It further alleges that the automated messages qualify as TCPA violations partly because they are “agentless text blast[s] generated by a computer,” and because they were “drafted in advance and sent out automatically based on pre-programmed parameters.”
Without the plaintiff’s prior, express consent to receive text messages, the filing claims that OpenTable both negligently and wilfully violated the TCPA. The complaint seeks to certify a nationwide class consisting of people who received unsolicited and non-consensual messages from the company in the last four years. For the alleged harm and invasion of privacy, the plaintiff and class seek corresponding damages and injunctive relief.
The plaintiff is represented by Law Offices of Todd M. Friedman P.C.
