Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_16-cv-00713/USCOURTS-caed-2_16-cv-00713-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Consolidated World Travel, Inc.
Defendant
Kinaya Hewlett
Plaintiff
Holiday Cruise Line
Defendant

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

----oo0oo----

KINAYA HEWLETT, on behalf of 

herself and all others 

similarly situated,

 Plaintiff,

v.

CONSOLIDATED WORLD TRAVEL, 

INC. d/b/a HOLIDAY CRUISE 

LINE,

 Defendant.

Civ. No. 2:16-713 WBS AC

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER RE: MOTION 

TO DISMISS

----oo0oo----

Plaintiff Kinaya Hewlett brought this putative class 

action against defendant Consolidated World Travel, Inc. d/b/a 

Holiday Cruise Line, alleging violations of the Telephone 

Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), 47 U.S.C. § 227 et seq. (First 

Am. Compl. (“FAC”) (Docket No. 14).) The matter is now before 

the court on defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject 

matter jurisdiction pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

12(b)(1) and for failure to state a claim upon which relief can 

be granted pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6). (Docket No. 17.)

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I. Background

Plaintiff alleges that, in March 2016, defendant called 

plaintiff’s “cellular telephone nearly daily using an automatic 

telephone dialing system [“ATDS”] and artificial or prerecorded 

voice” in an attempt “to sell [plaintiff] a ‘free cruise.’” (FAC 

¶¶ 12-17.) Plaintiff alleges that she did not give her prior 

express consent to receive these autodialed calls from defendant. 

(Id. ¶ 14.) She states that defendant called her from multiple 

telephone numbers and continued to call her despite plaintiff’s 

repeated “requests to Defendant and/or its agents for the calls 

to stop.” (Id. ¶¶ 15-17.) 

Plaintiff also seeks to represent a putative class of 

other unconsenting recipients of defendant’s autodialed calls. 

(Id. ¶¶ 2, 18-20.) In its pending motion to dismiss, defendant 

argues that the court does not have subject matter jurisdiction 

here because plaintiff lacks standing under Article III. (Mem. 

at 1 (Docket No. 17-1).) Defendant also contends that plaintiff 

fails to state a claim for relief because she has not alleged 

“any facts plausibly stating that [defendant] had any involvement 

in the telephone calls.” (Id. at 9.)

II. Discussion

A. Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction

“Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction.” 

Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377 

(1994). “If the court determines at any time that it lacks 

subject-matter jurisdiction, the court must dismiss the action.” 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3). Standing pertains to the court’s

subject matter jurisdiction under Article III and may be 

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challenged in a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1). White v. 

Lee, 227 F.3d 1214, 1242 (9th Cir. 2000).

Article III standing requires that a plaintiff “have 

(1) suffered an injury in fact, (2) that is fairly traceable to 

the challenged conduct of the defendant, and (3) that is likely 

to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” Spokeo, Inc. 

v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1547 (2016). “The plaintiff, as the 

party invoking federal jurisdiction, bears the burden of 

establishing these elements.” Id. Where the “case is at the 

pleading stage, the plaintiff must clearly allege facts 

demonstrating each element.” Id. (quotation marks and 

alterations omitted). “To establish injury in fact, a plaintiff 

must show that he or she suffered an invasion of a legally 

protected interest that is concrete and particularized and actual 

or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Id. (quotation

marks omitted). 

Defendant argues that plaintiff “fails to specify what 

injury she herself supposedly suffered” or “to allege a concrete 

or particularized injury that is traceable to anything 

[defendant] is alleged to have done.” (Mem. at 1, 5.) Plaintiff 

alleges that she was “harmed by the acts of Defendant in the form 

of multiple involuntary telephone and electrical charges, the 

aggravation, nuisance, and invasion of privacy that necessarily 

accompanies the receipt of unsolicited and harassing telephone 

calls, and violations of [her] statutory rights.” (FAC ¶ 23.) 

“For an injury to be particularized, it must affect the 

plaintiff in a personal and individual way.” Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. 

at 1548 (quotation marks omitted). In light of plaintiff’s 

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allegations that defendant called her “nearly daily” in March 

2016 from multiple telephone numbers despite plaintiff’s repeated 

requests to defendant to stop calling her, plaintiff’s 

allegations of “aggravation, nuisance, and invasion of privacy” 

are sufficiently particularized to show that she was personally 

harmed by defendant’s alleged conduct. (FAC ¶¶ 12-17, 23); see

Smith v. Microsoft Corp., Civ. No. 11–1958 JLS BGS, 2012 WL 

2975712, at *6 (S.D. Cal. July 20, 2012) (“[B]y alleging he 

received a text message in violation of the TCPA, [plaintiff] has 

established a particularized injury in satisfaction of Article 

III premised on the invasion of his privacy, even absent any 

economic harm.”).

Plaintiff’s allegations are also sufficient to satisfy 

Article III’s concreteness requirement. The Supreme Court has 

explained that, in determining whether an intangible harm 

constitutes a concrete injury under Article III, courts must

consider (1) “whether [the] intangible harm has a close 

relationship to a harm that has traditionally been regarded as 

providing a basis for a lawsuit”; and (2) “the judgment of 

Congress” in “identifying and elevating” the intangible harm “to 

the status of [a] legally cognizable injur[y]” that “give[s] rise 

to a case or controversy.” Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1549-50

(citations omitted).

Courts have consistently held that allegations of 

nuisance and invasion of privacy in TCPA actions are sufficient 

to state a concrete injury under Article III. See, e.g., Cour v. 

Life360, Inc., Civ. No. 16-805 TEH, 2016 WL 4039279, at *2 (N.D. 

Cal. July 28, 2016) (finding that plaintiff “allege[d] a concrete 

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injury sufficient to confer Article III standing” because he

alleged that “[the defendant] invaded his privacy”); Booth v. 

Appstack, Inc., Civ. No. C13-1533 JLR, 2016 WL 3030256, at *5 

(W.D. Wash. May 24, 2016) (finding concrete injury in the form of 

“waste[d] time answering or otherwise addressing widespread 

robocalls”); Meyer v. Bebe Stores, Inc., Civ. No. 14-267 YGR, 

2015 WL 431148, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 2, 2015) (holding that the

allegation that a single unsolicited text message from defendant 

was an invasion of privacy satisfied Article III standing 

requirements even though plaintiff did “not allege she incurred 

any carrier charges for the specific text message at issue”). 

Because the harm alleged by plaintiff has “been regarded as 

providing a basis for a lawsuit,” the first factor weighs in 

favor of finding that plaintiff has sufficiently alleged a 

concrete injury here. See Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1549.

The “judgment of Congress” also weighs in favor of 

finding that plaintiff has sufficiently alleged a concrete harm. 

See id. “[B]ecause Congress is well positioned to identify 

intangible harms that meet minimum Article III requirements, its 

judgment is . . . instructive and important.” Id. In analyzing

“the purposes of the TCPA,” the Ninth Circuit observed that 

“[t]he TCPA was enacted in response to an increasing number of 

consumer complaints” that “unsolicited, automated telephone 

calls” were a “nuisance and an invasion of privacy.” Satterfield 

v. Simon & Schuster, Inc., 569 F.3d 946, 954 (9th Cir. 2009). 

“The purpose and history of the TCPA indicate that Congress was 

trying to prohibit the use of ATDSs to communicate with others by 

telephone in a manner that would be an invasion of privacy.” Id. 

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The purpose and history of the TCPA thus suggest that Congress 

sought to curb the “aggravation, nuisance, and invasion of 

privacy” that plaintiff alleges here, which resulted from 

defendant’s alleged use of an ATDS to call plaintiff despite 

plaintiff’s repeated requests for those autodialed calls to stop. 

(FAC ¶¶ 12-17, 23.)

In support of its argument that plaintiff here does not

sufficiently state a concrete injury, defendant relies on a 

ruling in a similar TCPA class action in Smith v. Aitima Medical 

Equipment, Inc., Civ. No. 16-339 AB DTB (C.D. Cal. July 29, 

2016). (Reply at 4, Ex. A (Docket No. 22).) In Smith, the court 

held that the plaintiff failed to allege a concrete injury 

because she could not “allege more than a de minimis injury given 

the fact that she received only one call.” (Reply Ex. A at 6-7.) 

The court reasoned that the plaintiff there “only alleged the 

receipt of one phone call from Defendant,” which at most “lasted 

for a few seconds.” (Id. at 5-6.)

The Supreme Court, however, recently confirmed that 

allegations of a single TCPA violation can be sufficient to 

confer Article III standing. In Gomez v. Campbell-Ewald Co., 768 

F.3d 871 (9th Cir. 2014), aff’d, 136 S. Ct. 663 (2016), the 

plaintiff received a single unsolicited text message from the 

defendant’s agent and filed suit against the defendant “seeking 

compensation for the alleged violation of the TCPA.” Id. at 

873-74. Plaintiff “also sought to represent a putative class of 

other unconsenting recipients of the [defendant’s] text 

messages.” Id. at 874. The Ninth Circuit held that “Congress 

has expressly created a federal cause of action affording 

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individuals like Gomez standing to seek compensation for 

violations of the TCPA.” Id. at 880. The Supreme Court 

affirmed, holding that “the District Court retained jurisdiction 

to adjudicate Gomez’s complaint.” Gomez, 136 S. Ct. at 672.

Additionally, unlike in Smith, plaintiff here alleges 

that defendant called her “nearly daily” in March 2016 from 

multiple numbers despite plaintiff’s repeated requests for the 

calls to stop. (FAC ¶¶ 12-17.) The FAC also suggests that 

defendant’s calls lasted more than a few seconds:

When [plaintiff] answered calls from Defendant and/or its 

agents, she heard a pause or dead air before a roboticsounding recorded voice began, indicating use of an 

[ATDS] and artificial or prerecorded voice. After the 

robotic-sounding voice concluded, a live person came onto 

the phone as well. The agent attempted to sell 

[plaintiff] a ‘free cruise’ [and plaintiff] has 

repeatedly made requests to Defendant and/or its agent 

for the calls to stop.

(Id. ¶¶ 16-17.)

Plaintiff’s factual allegations, which the court must 

construe in the light most favorable to plaintiff on a motion to 

dismiss, there is a reasonable inference that defendant or its 

agents placed more than one call to plaintiff here. This 

reasonable inference is sufficient to make plaintiff’s TCPA claim 

plausible and thus survive dismissal at this stage. See Ashcroft 

v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678–79 (2009) (holding that dismissal is 

granted only where reasonable inferences drawn from the 

plaintiff’s allegations fail to state a plausible claim for 

relief).

Smith is therefore inapplicable here. In fact, the 

Smith court acknowledged “the injury multiple phone calls can 

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cause” and observed that “[c]ourts have found allegations of 

‘systematic rather than episodic’ unauthorized conduct to be more 

than a de minimis injury, and thus sufficient to confer 

standing.” (Reply Ex. A at 6.) These are exactly the

circumstances alleged in the present action. The reasoning in 

Smith thus supports--rather than undermines--the conclusion that 

plaintiff has alleged a concrete injury under Article III here.

Lastly, plaintiff has traced her alleged injury to 

defendant: “[Defendant] and/or its agents made unsolicited and 

harassing telemarketing calls to Plaintiff on her cellular 

telephone using an automatic telephone dialing system and an 

artificial or prerecorded voice [without plaintiff’s] prior 

express written consent to make these calls.” (FAC ¶ 1.) 

Plaintiff’s allegations are therefore sufficient to confer 

Article III standing. Accordingly, the court has subject matter 

jurisdiction over this action.

B. Failure to State a Claim

A claim may be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) if the 

complaint’s factual allegations, together with all reasonable 

inferences drawn from those allegations, fail to state a 

plausible claim for relief. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678–79. A 

plausible claim exists “when the plaintiff pleads factual content 

that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the 

defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. at 678. 

The plausibility standard “does not require detailed 

factual allegations” or impose a “probability requirement” at the 

pleading stage. Id.; Starr v. Baca, 652 F.3d 1202, 1213 (9th 

Cir. 2011). It “simply calls for enough facts to raise a 

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reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence” to 

support plaintiff’s allegations. Starr, 652 F.3d at 1217 (citing 

Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 556 (2007)). In ruling 

on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the court must accept the 

plaintiff’s factual allegations as true and construe them in the 

light most favorable to the plaintiff. Adams v. U.S. Forest 

Serv., 671 F.3d 1138, 1142–43 (9th Cir. 2012). The court need 

not, however, accept as true any unreasonable inferences or 

conclusory legal allegations cast in the form of factual 

allegations. Fayer v. Vaughn, 649 F.3d 1061, 1064 (9th Cir. 

2011).

The TCPA makes it unlawful “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 

. . . to any telephone number assigned to a . . . cellular 

telephone service.” 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii). The TCPA 

authorizes a private right of action “to recover for actual 

monetary loss from [] a violation, or to receive $500 in damages 

for each [] violation, whichever is greater.” Id. § 227(b)(3). 

In the case of knowing or willful violations, the court has 

discretion to award up to treble damages for each violation. Id.

Defendant argues that plaintiff fails to state a claim 

under the TCPA because plaintiff’s “FAC lacks any facts to permit 

as a plausible inference that [defendant], as opposed to anyone 

else, is the party that physically placed the telephone calls at 

issue.” (Mem. at 9.) But defendant’s contentions that it did 

not actually make the alleged calls to plaintiff, even if true, 

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do not necessarily preclude plaintiff from asserting a plausible 

TCPA claim here. Plaintiff alleges that defendant “and/or its 

agents made unsolicited and harassing telemarketing calls to 

Plaintiff.” (FAC ¶ 1 (emphasis added).) The Ninth Circuit has 

emphasized that “calls placed by an agent of the telemarketer are 

treated as if the telemarketer itself placed the call.” Gomez,

768 F.3d at 878 (citation and alterations omitted); see id. at 

877 (rejecting the argument that a defendant “cannot be held 

liable for TCPA violations because it outsourced the dialing and 

did not actually make any calls”).

In addition, defendant’s argument that plaintiff fails

to allege “that [defendant], as opposed to anyone else, is the 

party that physically placed the telephone calls at issue” is 

unavailing. (Mem. at 9.) Plaintiff specifically alleges that 

defendant called her cellular phone at 1:35 PM on March 14, 2016 

using an ATDS without her prior express consent from a telephone 

number that her caller ID identified as “Holiday Cruise Line.” 

(FAC ¶¶ 12-14.) Plaintiff alleges that “Holiday Cruise Line” is 

a fictitious business name used by defendant, (id. ¶ 4), a fact 

that defendant acknowledges here, (Mem. at 11). Plaintiff also

alleges that defendant called her from multiple telephone numbers 

using an ATDS and continued to call her despite her repeated 

“requests to Defendant and/or its agents for the calls to stop.” 

(FAC ¶¶ 15-17.) 

Plaintiff has thus stated a plausible claim that 

defendant used an ATDS to call plaintiff’s cellular phone without 

her prior express consent in violation of 47 U.S.C. 

§ 227(b)(1)(A)(iii). Accordingly, the court will deny 

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defendant’s motion to dismiss.

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that defendant’s motion to 

dismiss, (Docket No. 17), be, and the same hereby is, DENIED.

Dated: August 23, 2016

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