Amended Suit vs. State Farm Seeks to Boost Plaintiff’s Do-Not-Call Claim

State Farm, via third parties acting on its behalf, made numerous telemarketing calls to consumer Thomas Gebka’s cellphone number to advertise the insurance company's goods and services without Gebka’s express consent, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, alleged his amended class-action complaint Friday (docket 1:22-cv-05546) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. State Farm’s Dec. 2 motion to dismiss Gebka’s original Oct. 10 complaint argued the plaintiff did not properly allege a do-not-call claim under the TCPA because the complaint asserted he added his residential phone number to the do-not-call registry but received the allegedly unlawful calls on his cellphone. Gebka’s amended complaint reworded the original, saying he registered his residential phone number, with 2696 as the last four digits, on the do-not-call registry, and used that number -- “assigned to a cellular telephone service” -- for residential purposes. Gebka’s original complaint listed no phone numbers on which he received the allegedly unlawful calls.