United States District Court, D. Oregon, Pendleton Division
PAM REYNOLDS, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiff,
v.
GEICO CORPORATION, Defendant.
OPINION AND ORDER
PATRICIA SULLIVAN United States Magistrate Judge.
Plaintiff
Pam Reynolds brings this putative class action against
defendant Geico Corporation for violations of the Telephone
Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), 47 U.S.C.
§ 227 et seq. Plaintiff alleges that defendant
sent her, and others in two putative classes, unsolicited
text messages using an automatic telephone dialing system,
without obtaining consent, and despite requests to cease.
Defendant has moved to stay the proceedings, or in the
alternative, to dismiss plaintiff's complaint. (Docket
No. 19). Defendant's Motion to Stay is based on the
matter of ACA International v. FCC, No 15-1211 (D.C.
Cir. 2015), currently pending before the Court of Appeals for
the D.C. Circuit, which may decide the validity of a
declaratory ruling by the Federal Communications Commission
(“FCC”) and if so, defendant argues, could
directly bear on the viability of plaintiff's claims in
this action. Defendant's alternative Motion to Dismiss
argues that plaintiff does not plausibly state a claim for
relief under the TCPA. Plaintiff opposes defendant's
Motion. (Docket No. 21). Although defendant has requested
oral argument on its Motion, the Court has determined that
the Motion is suitable for resolution without oral argument.
On review of the parties' arguments and submissions, the
Court GRANTS defendant's Motion to Stay, and accordingly,
does not reach the merits of defendant's Motion to
Dismiss.
FACTUAL
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff
owns a cellular telephone. Compl. (Docket No. 1) ¶ 27.
Beginning in May 2016, plaintiff began receiving unsolicited
text messages on her cellular telephone from “short
code” 434-26, [1] “a number associated with”
defendant. Id. ¶ 28. Plaintiff received one
text message from defendant, from short code 434-26, on May
27, 2016, that read, “GEICO Policy: Your payment of
$127.79 for policy ending in 6756 will be withdrawn from bank
acct ending in 5155 on 06/01. Reply STOP to end texts.”
Id. ¶ 29 & Ex. A (screenshots of text
messages). Plaintiff received another text message from
defendant, from short code 434-26, on June 25, 2016, that
read, “GEICO Policy: Renewal ID Cards are now available
at https://dispatch.geico.com/ecams/expressRenewal.xhtml for
policy ending in 6756. Reply STOP to end texts.”
Id. ¶ 30 & Ex. A (Docket No. 1-1).
Plaintiff received another similar text message on June 26,
2016. Id. ¶ 31. On June 26, 2016, plaintiff
emailed defendant's customer support requesting that the
unsolicited text messages cease; that same day, defendant
replied and said it would remove plaintiff's phone number
from its marketing lists, allowing six to eight weeks to
process the removal request. Id. ¶ 32 & Ex.
B (Docket No. 1-2). Plaintiff sent this email instead of
replying to the text message with “STOP, ” as the
message had suggested, to request that messages cease.
Plaintiff received further text messages in July and August
2016, including after the eight weeks defendant said it would
need to stop sending such messages. Id. ¶¶
33-35.
PROCEDURAL
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff
brings this action on behalf of two putative classes. The
first, the “Autodialed No Consent Class, ”
consists of those whose cellular telephones defendant sent
text messages to without prior express consent. Compl.
(Docket No. 1) ¶ 40. The second, the “Autodialed
Stop Call Class, ” consists of those whose cellular
telephones defendant sent text messages to after those
recipients informed defendant that they no longer wanted to
receive text messages. Id.
Plaintiff
brings two causes of action. First, on behalf of herself and
the Autodialed No Consent Class, plaintiff alleges that
defendant violated the TCPA, 47 U.S.C. §
227(b)(1)(A)(iii), by sending unsolicited text messages to
cellular telephone numbers using an automatic dialer (i.e.,
“equipment that . . . had the capacity to store or
produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or
sequential number generator, and/or receive and store lists
of phone numbers, and to dial such numbers, en
masse, without human intervention”) without the
recipients' prior express consent. Compl. (Docket No. 1)
¶¶ 47-53. Second, on behalf of herself and the
Autodialed Stop Call Class, plaintiff alleges that defendant
violated the same TCPA section by sending unsolicited text
messages to cellular telephones using an automatic dialer
after the recipients requested to no longer receive such
messages. Id. ¶¶ 54-60.
Plaintiff
seeks monetary, declaratory, and injunctive relief for
herself and the class members. Compl. (Docket No. 1), at
17-18.
The
Court has jurisdiction over this matter under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1331.
LEGAL
STANDARD
The
district court has the inherent power to stay its
proceedings. Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248,
254-55 (1936) (“[T]he power to stay proceedings is
incidental to the power inherent in every court to control
the disposition of the causes on its docket with economy of
time and effort for itself, for counsel, and for litigants.
How this can best be done calls for the exercise of judgment,
which must weigh competing interests and maintain an even
balance.”).
A trial court may, with propriety, find it is efficient for
its own docket and the fairest course for the parties to
enter a stay of an action before it, pending resolution of
independent proceedings which bear upon the case. This rule
applies whether the separate proceedings are judicial,
administrative, or arbitral in character, and does not
require that the issues in such proceedings are necessarily
controlling of the action before the court.
Leyva v. Certified Grocers of Cal., Ltd., 593 F.2d
857, 863-64 (9th Cir. 1979). “The proponent of a stay
bears the burden of establishing its need.” Clinton
v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681, 708 (1997). In considering a
motion to stay, a court must consider three factors: (1)
potential prejudice to the non-moving party, (2) hardship and
inequity to the moving party if the action is not stayed, and
(3) the judicial resources that would be saved. See CMAX,
Inc. v. Hall, 300 F.2d 265, 268 (9th Cir. 1962);
Oregon, ex rel. Kroger v. Johnson &
Johnson, No. 11-cv-86-AC, 2011 WL 1347069, at *2 (D. Or.
Apr. 8, 2011). “If there is even a fair possibility
that the stay will work damage to some one else, the stay may
be inappropriate absent a showing by the moving party of
hardship or inequity.” Dependable Highway Express,
Inc. v. Navigators Ins. Co., 498 F.3d 1059, 1066 (9th
Cir. 2007) (quotation omitted). “A stay should not be
granted unless it appears likely the other proceedings will
be concluded within a reasonable time in relation to the
urgency of the claims presented to the court.”
Levya, 593 F.2d at 864. However, “being
required to defend a ...