Class Action Lawsuit Against Matrix and Car Protection USA Transferred to Northern District of Texas

Extended warranty robocall suit originally filed in Northern District of Georgia

Posted by Tony Russell

May 29, 2020

A class action lawsuit filed against Matrix Warranty Solutions, Inc. and Car Protection USA was moved from the US District Court Northern District of Georgia to the Northern District of Texas on Thursday, April 30th at the request of the defendants. Car Protection USA, doing business as Clear Path, John Davis, and Matrix Warranty Solutions, Inc. doing business as Element Protection filed a joint motion for the transfer.

The suit accuses Matrix of commissioning automated and pre-recorded telemarketing calls to the Plaintiff and other members of the class in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Known as TCPA, the law was enacted in 1991 as a response at the time to consumer outrage against telemarketers.

Matrix knew (or reasonably should have known) that Clear Path was violating the TCPA on its behalf and failed to take effective steps within its power to force the telemarketer to cease that conduct.

Foote v. Car Protection USA et al was originally filed on September 29, 2019, with an amended complaint filed on December 3, 2019.

Lead Plaintiff Paula Foote alleges she was called by Clear Path on August 16, 2019, and when she answered she was greeted by a pre-recorded message advertising warranty services by Clear Path. At some point, she spoke with a live representative who offered to sell her an Element Warranty protection plan.

The Plaintiff claims that she had not consented to receiving calls from the Defendants.

According to the complaint, "Matrix knew (or reasonably should have known) that Clear Path was violating the TCPA on its behalf and failed to take effective steps within its power to force the telemarketer to cease that conduct."

Although Ms. Foote was not called directly by Matrix Warranty Solutions, the filing claims that Matrix cannot avoid liability by outsourcing telemarketing to third parties.

Per the FCC, "allowing the seller to avoid potential liability by outsourcing its telemarketing activities to unsupervised third parties would leave consumers in many cases without an effective remedy for telemarketing intrusions. This would particularly be so if the telemarketers were judgment proof, unidentifiable, or located outside the United States, as is often the case. Even where third-party telemarketers are identifiable, solvent, and amenable to judgment limiting liability to the telemarketer that physically places the call would make enforcement in many cases substantially more expensive and less efficient, since consumers (or law enforcement agencies) would be required to sue each marketer separately in order to obtain effective relief. As the FTC noted, because '[s]ellers may have thousands of 'independent' marketers, suing one or a few of them is unlikely to make a substantive difference for consumer privacy.'"

According to the YouMail Robocall Index, nearly 136 million scam extended warranty robocalls were made in April 2020, with a total of 2.9 billion robocalls for the month.

The suit seeks to bar the Defendants from "calling telephone numbers using an automated telephone dialing system or pre-recorded voice," as well as up to $1500 for each call received by a member of the class.

A copy of the amended complaint can be viewed here