Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_19-cv-01057/USCOURTS-cand-4_19-cv-01057-7/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 47:227 Restrictions of Use of Telephone Equipment

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

PAUL IZOR,

Plaintiff,

v.

ABACUS DATA SYSTEMS, INC,

Defendant.

Case No. 19-cv-01057-HSG 

ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT'S 

MOTION TO STAY

Re: Dkt. No. 50

Defendant moves the Court to stay this case under its inherent authority “until the Supreme 

Court decides the constitutionality of the TCPA in Barr v. American Association of Political 

Consultants Inc., 19-631.” Dkt. No. 50. For the reasons noted below, the Court DENIES

Defendant’s motion to stay.1

I. DISCUSSION

A district court’s “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.” Landis v. N. Am. Co., 299 U.S. 248, 254 (1936). To 

determine whether a Landis stay is warranted, courts consider: (1) “the possible damage which 

may result from the granting of a stay,” (2) “the hardship or inequity which a party may suffer in 

being required to go forward,” and (3) “the orderly course of justice measured in terms of the 

simplifying or complicating of issues, proof, and questions of law which could be expected to 

result from a stay.” CMAX, Inc. v. Hall, 300 F.2d 265, 268 (9th Cir. 1962) (citing Landis, 299 

1 Defendant also filed two requests for judicial notice of documents filed in Barr and other cases. 

See Dkt. Nos. 52, 61. Because the Court can consider these documents in deciding the motion, the 

Court GRANTS the two requests. See Papai v. Harbor Tug & Barge Co., 67 F.3d 203, 207 n.5 

(9th Cir. 1995) (“Judicial notice is properly taken of orders and decisions made by other courts.”), 

rev’d on other grounds, 520 U.S. 548 (1997).

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U.S. at 254–55). “[I]f there is even a fair possibility that the stay for which [the requesting party] 

prays will work damage to [someone] else,” then the party seeking a stay “must make out a clear 

case of hardship or inequity in being required to go forward.” Landis, 299 U.S. at 255. A district 

court’s decision to grant or deny a Landis stay is a matter of discretion. Dependable Highway 

Express, Inc. v. Navigators Ins. Co., 498 F.3d 1059, 1066 (9th Cir. 2007).

Under Landis, the Court declines to exercise its discretion to stay the case pending the 

Supreme Court’s decision in Barr. The Court agrees that a stay will likely result in little damage 

to Plaintiff. Although oral argument in Barr has been postponed in response to public health 

guidance regarding COVID-19, the stay would not be indefinite or present the possibility of 

continuing wrongful conduct, as the messaging campaign at issue in this case only took place from 

December 2018 to February 2019. See Dkt. No. 50-1 at ¶3. The Court similarly finds little 

hardship or inequity will result if the case moves forward. While Defendant argues that it “will 

suffer harm in the form of potentially unnecessary fees and costs spent litigating a class action that 

may be mooted shortly,” Dkt. No. 51 at 12, “being required to defend a suit, without more, does 

not constitute a ‘clear case of hardship or inequity’ within the meaning of Landis.’” Lockyer v. 

Mirant Corp., 393 F.3d 1098, 1112 (9th Cir. 2005). Moreover, Defendant fails to acknowledge 

that a second cause of action alleged by Plaintiffs under section 227(c)(5) will be completely 

unaffected by the outcome in Barr. See Dkt. No. 1. The discovery deadline in this case was 

previously set for March 27, 2020, and the parties have represented that depositions remain. See 

Dkt. No. 50-1 at ¶¶3–5. The depositions are relevant to both causes of action and thus will need to 

be taken regardless. The circumstances may change after all discovery is complete since the two 

causes of action allege two different classes, but the Court sees little to no harm in the case 

proceeding to the class certification stage. See Dkt. No. 44. 

Finally, the Court turns to the factor of judicial economy, which is the most significant 

based on the scenario presented in this motion. Defendant argues that that a stay will conserve 

judicial resources since Barr could invalidate section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) (Plaintiff’s first cause of 

action) in its entirety. Barr certified two issues to the Supreme Court: “whether the governmentdebt exception found in 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) violates the First Amendment,” and if so, 

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United States District Court

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“whether the proper remedy [is] to sever the offending exception from the TCPA, leaving the 

remainder of the TCPA intact.” Mot. at 1. Section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) states:

It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States, or any 

person outside the United States if the recipient is within the United 

States--

(A)to make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes 

or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using 

any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or 

prerecorded voice--

(iii) to any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular 

telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio 

common carrier service, or any service for which the called party 

is charged for the call, unless such call is made solely to collect a 

debt owed to or guaranteed by the United States.

47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) (emphasis added). The Fourth Circuit held that the government-debt 

exception of the TCPA (emphasized above) is unconstitutional under the First Amendment, and 

severed this provision from the remainder of the statute. Am. Ass’n of Political Consultants, Inc. 

v. Fed. Commc’ns Comm’n, 923 F.3d 159, 171 (4th Cir. 2019) (“We are also satisfied that a 

severance of the debt-collection exemption will not undermine the automated call ban. For 

twenty-four years, from 1991 until 2015, the automated call ban was ‘fully operative.’ As a result, 

the Plaintiffs simply cannot show that excising the debt-collection exemption will hamper the 

function of the ban.”) (citations omitted). The Ninth Circuit similarly held in Duguid v. Facebook, 

Inc. 926 F.3d 1146, 1156 (9th Cir. 2019) (“Though incompatible with the First Amendment, the 

debt-collection exception is severable from the TCPA.”)

Defendant’s argument relies entirely on the second question: it assumes that if the Supreme 

Court agrees that the government-debt exception is unconstitutional under the First Amendment, it

also will find that the provision is not severable from section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii)—but that is the 

opposite of what both the Fourth and Ninth Circuits held. The government-debt exception is not 

at issue in this case, nor has Defendant put it in issue. See Dkt. No. 21 (Defendant’s motion to 

dismiss only concerned Plaintiff’s second cause of action under section 227(c)(5) and did not raise 

any issues with the constitutionality or interpretation of section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii)). Defendant’s

hope that the Supreme Court will find the government-debt exception inseverable and overturn 

controlling authority in this circuit does not warrant a stay pending a decision in Barr. See 

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Duguid, 926 F.3d at 1156 (“While not dispositive, this unambiguous language endorsing 

severability relieves us of a counterfactual inquiry as to congressional intent and creates a 

presumption of severability absent ‘strong evidence that Congress intended otherwise.’”) (quoting 

Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, 480 U.S. 678, 686 (1987)).

Defendant points to Seefeldt v. Entertainment Consulting International, LLC, No. 4:19-

CV-00188, 2020 WL 905844, at *3 (E.D. Mo. Feb. 25, 2020), Wright v. EXP Realty, LLC 18-cv1851-ORL-40EJK, Dkt. No. 99 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 7, 2020), Jones v. USHealth Group, No. 19-cv02534, Dkt. No. 53 (D. Kan. March 12, 2020), and Perrong v. Liberty Power Corp., 18-cv-00712 

(D. Del. Mar. 6, 2020), which all recently granted stays in TCPA putative class actions pending

the Supreme Court’s decision in Barr. The Court does not find these cases persuasive given the 

nature of this case. In Seefeldt, “the definitional problem of what constitutes an autodialer” and 

“government-debt exception issue [were] certainly front-and-center in [the parties’] arguments,” 

No. 4:19-CV-00188, 2020 WL 905844, at *3 (E.D. Mo. Feb. 25, 2020), but neither of those issues 

are raised here. Instead, Defendant solely relies upon petitioner’s request for review of the 

severability question in Barr. In Wright, Jones, and Perrong, the courts provided very little 

explanation as to why any proceedings before the resolution of Barr would be a waste of judicial 

resources. 

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United States District Court

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II. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, and in its discretion, the Court DENIES Defendant’s motion to 

stay. The Court further sets a telephonic conference for April 28, 2020 at 2:00 p.m. All counsel 

shall use the following dial-in information to access the call: Dial-In: 888-808-6929 Passcode: 

6064255. For call clarity, parties shall NOT use speaker phone or earpieces for these calls, and 

where at all possible, parties shall use landlines. The parties are further advised to ensure that the 

Court can hear and understand them clearly before speaking at length. The parties are directed to 

file a joint statement proposing an amended case schedule, given that the stayed deadlines have 

already passed. The joint statement must be efiled by April 22, 2020. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated:

______________________________________

HAYWOOD S. GILLIAM, JR.

United States District Judge

4/13/2020

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