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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS, EASTERN DIVISION

GRANT BIRCHMEIER, STEPHEN PARKES, 

and REGINA STONE, on behalf of themselves 

and a class of others similarly situated,

Plaintiffs,

v.

CARIBBEAN CRUISE LINE, INC., ECONOMIC 

STRATEGY GROUP, ECONOMIC STRATEGY 

GROUP, INC., ECONOMIC STRATEGY, LLC, 

THE BERKLEY GROUP, INC., and VACATION 

OWNERSHIP MARKETING TOURS, INC., 

Defendants.

Case No. 1:12-cv-04069

Honorable Matthew F. Kennelly

PLAINTIFFS’ STATUS REPORT REGARDING NOTICE PLAN

Plaintiffs, on behalf of themselves and the certified Classes, hereby submit the instant report 

in advance of the upcoming March 20, 2015 Status Hearing (i) to update the Court on the status of 

Plaintiffs’ subpoenas to third-party telephone carriers, (ii) provide an updated Declaration of Daniel 

Rosenthal in Support of Plaintiffs’ Notice Plan, which is attached hereto as Exhibit A, and (iii) 

inform the Court of the procedure agreed to by Plaintiffs, Defendants, and the relevant wireless 

carriers regarding providing name and address information to counsel of those class members who 

have expressed their desire to opt out, notwithstanding their requests to be excluded from the 

Classes. 

Status of Plaintiffs’ Subpoenas to Third Parties

1. First, as explained to the Court in Plaintiffs’ previous filings and during prior status 

hearings, in effort to identify the names and address information for the approximately 370,000 

wireless telephone numbers appearing in Defendants’ records (or the records of their third-party 

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telephone providers), Plaintiffs issued and are enforcing subpoenas to the five carriers identified by 

Neustar as owning approximately 90% of those wireless numbers. Those carriers include: Sprint, U.S. 

Cellular, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile US, Inc.

2. To date, four of the five carriers (all but T-Mobile) have informed Plaintiffs’ counsel 

how many phone numbers they were able to match to a name and address on the specific date 

Defendants’ calls were received, which as evidenced by the chart below collectively amounts to 

271,189 out of 348,001 individuals, or 78% of the total wireless numbers, without yet accounting for 

T-Mobile’s production:

Carrier Number of Names 

& Addresses 

Returned

Total Number of 

Phone Numbers 

Provided

% of Matches

Sprint 43,209 44,195 98%

US Cellular 5, 821 10,291 57%

Verizon Wireless 109,310 125,682 87%

AT&T 112,849 125,952 90%

T-Mobile TBD 41,881 TBD

TOTAL 271,189 348,001

78% (without 

accounting for TMobile matches)

3. As evidenced by the Chart above, Plaintiffs’ counsel is still awaiting information 

from T-Mobile. Plaintiffs’ counsel has attempted to contact counsel for T-Mobile on no fewer than 

three separate occasions to determine how many phone numbers they were able to match to a name 

and address on the date the call was received, or alternatively, to determine when T-Mobile will be 

able to provide that information, but counsel for T-Mobile has not responded to those emails or 

calls. 

4. As such, the 78% number reflected in the above chart does not account for the 

name and address information expected to be produced by T-Mobile in response to Plaintiffs’ 

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subpoenas, and Plaintiffs reasonably believe that this number will increase once T-Mobile provides 

that information. 

Updated Declaration of Daniel Rosenthal in Support of Plaintiffs’ Notice Plan

5. Second, on October 14, 2014, Daniel Rosenthal submitted a Declaration in support 

of Plaintiff’s Motion for Approval of Class Notice Plan that provided the Court with his and KCC’s 

qualifications and experiences regarding the development of class action notice plans generally, and 

to provide information regarding the specific Notice Plan in this case. As Plaintiffs have now 

received responses to nearly all of their subpoenas to wireless carriers and KCC has completed the 

reverse lookup process for residential landline telephone numbers, Mr. Rosenthal now submits an 

updated declaration (the “Updated Declaration”). See Exhibit A ¶ 2.

6. In his Updated Declaration, Mr. Rosenthal concludes that the “[c]combined media 

efforts [of the Notice Plan] alone will reach an estimated 70.9% of all U.S. adults 18 years of age and 

older on average 1.2 times each,” and separately that “the reach of Class members for whom valid 

mailing addresses have been obtained will exceed 85% of the known phone numbers (the estimated 

reach of the individual notice (direct mail) combined with the reach of the media efforts).” Id. ¶ 27. 

He further concludes that based on his “class action notice planning experience, the notice 

procedures utilized in this Notice Plan” (i) “provide the best notice practicable” and (ii) are “also 

consistent with the 70-95% reach guideline set forth in the Federal Judicial Center’s Judges’ Class 

Action Notice and Claims Process Checklist and Plain Language Guide. See Ex. A. ¶¶ 28-29.

Supplemental Notice to AT&T and Verizon Wireless Opt-Out Customers

7. Third, in attempt to reach an agreement with AT&T and Verizon about providing 

their respective subscribers’ name and address information to Plaintiffs’ counsel without sending a 

separate letter notifying its customers of Plaintiffs’ subpoenas (at Plaintiff’s expense), through the 

meet and confer process, Plaintiffs’ counsel originally proposed that AT&T and Verizon provide 

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their subscriber information to Plaintiffs’ class administrator directly—without providing it to 

counsel in the event the class member opted out. 

8. In ruling on Plaintiffs’ proposed notice documents, however, and subsequently at the 

February 13, 2015 Status Hearing, the Court held that Defendants were entitled to know which 

potential class members had opted out of the Classes, and therefore that the procedure originally

proposed by Plaintiffs’ counsel and agreed to by AT&T and Verizon would need to be changed. 

9. In light of that ruling, following the February 13th Status, counsel for Plaintiffs 

further conferred with counsel for AT&T and Verizon, who have both agreed to the following 

process: 

a. Verizon and AT&T will first provide the name and address information of their 

respective subscribers directly to KCC, without providing it to counsel for the 

Parties;

b. Subject to the Court’s approval, KCC will then send direct notice to all class 

members from whom it has complete names and valid mailing addresses; 

c. KCC will keep track of the specific AT&T and Verizon subscribers who choose to 

opt-out of the Classes, and inform AT&T and Verizon of those individual’s decision 

to be excluded from the Classes; 

d. AT&T and Verizon will then send a second supplemental notice letter to those 

individuals—at their own expense—informing them that despite their decisions to 

exclude themselves from the Classes, AT&T and/or Verizon will nonetheless be 

required to provide counsel with the subscribers’ name and address information 

unless they file a motion by a date certain, and ultimately obtain an order from the 

Court instructing AT&T and/or Verizon not to provide such information (the 

“Supplemental Notice Letter”); 

e. Unless AT&T and/or Verizon receives a notice that such a motion has been filed 

within the date determined (likely two weeks from the date the Supplemental Notice 

Letter was issued), KCC will make the name and address information of their optout subscribers available to the Parties directly.

10. Plaintiff has discussed this process with Defendants who have indicated that they 

have no objection to this procedure so long as the cost of such process does not increase the cost of 

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Plaintiff’s Notice Plan. The fact that AT&T and Verizon will bear the expense of sending out the 

supplemental letters should satisfy Defendants’ concerns.

11. As a result of this agreement, on March 12, 2015, Plaintiffs provided both AT&T 

and Verizon with a proposed draft Supplement Notice Letter. Plaintiffs’ counsel has reached an 

agreement with AT&T as to the contents of such letter, but is still waiting to hear back from 

Verizon at this time.1

Date: March 19, 2015 By: /s/ Eve-Lynn J. Rapp

Jay Edelson

jedelson@edelson.com

Rafey S. Balabanian

rbalabanian@edelson.com

Eve-Lynn J. Rapp

erapp@edelson.com

EDELSON PC

350 North LaSalle Street, Suite 1300

Chicago, Illinois 60654

Tel: 312.589.6370

Fax: 312.589.6378

Class Counsel

Scott R. Rauscher

scott@loevy.com

Michael I. Kanovitz

mike@loevy.com

Jonathan I. Loevy

jon@loevy.com

LOEVY & LOEVY

312 N. May Street, Suite 100

Chicago, Illinois 60607

Tel: 312.243.5900

Fax: 312.243.5902 

 

Class Counsel

Scott D. Owens

scott@scottdowens.com

LAW OFFICES OF SCOTT D. OWENS, ESQ.

664 East Hallandale Beach Boulevard

Hallandale, Florida 33009

Tel: (954) 306-8104 

 

Counsel for Stone

																																																							 1 To the extent that the Court wishes to review AT&T and Verizon’s Supplemental Notice 

Letters, Plaintiffs will promptly make those available. 

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 

I, Eve-Lynn J. Rapp, an attorney, hereby certify that on March 19, 2015, I served the above 

and foregoing Plaintiffs’ Status Report Regarding Notice Plan, by causing a true and accurate copy of such 

paper to be transmitted to all counsel of record via electronic mail, on this the 19th of March, 2015.

/s/ Eve-Lynn J. Rapp

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