Charter Seeks Dismissal of TCPA Class Action for Lack of Personal Jurisdiction

Plaintiff Shlomy Halawani, a “serial litigant,” alleges Charter Communications called his phone a single time using a prerecorded voice message to market Spectrum services, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection and the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act (see 2303100055), but Charter said the “jurisdictional evidence” shows it never called him. The company filed a motion Monday (docket 0:23-cv-60453) in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in Fort Lauderdale to dismiss Halawani’s putative class action for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Charter also denies it hired anyone to call Halawani on its behalf, said the motion. Charter’s “outbound marketing independent contractors” didn’t call Halawani, and Charter never listed his phone number as an authorized lead either, “so those contractors had no authority” to call him “regardless,” it said.

Since Halawani’s claims don’t arise out of Charter’s “Florida contacts,” the court lacks “specific personal jurisdiction,” said the motion. And because Charter isn’t “at home” in this state, there’s “no general personal jurisdiction either,” it said.

Charter isn’t subject to general jurisdiction in the state because it isn’t organized in Florida, doesn’t maintain its principal place of business in Florida and has no members who reside in Florida, said the motion. Charter is registered to do business in Florida, but “it has no corporate offices, real estate, or employees there,” it said.

Halawani can’t establish specific personal jurisdiction “because his claims arise out of some other person or entity’s Florida contacts,” not Charter’s, said the motion. The jurisdictional evidence shows Charter didn’t place the one call at issue, it said. Charter, in fact, “doesn’t even engage in outbound telemarketing,” it said, so Halawani’s “purported injury” therefore doesn’t arise from Charter’s “conduct in Florida.”

The “acts of the caller (whoever it was)” can’t be “imputed” to Charter to establish specific personal jurisdiction under an “agency theory,” said the motion. Halawani initially alleges only that Charter itself made the call, it said. “He doesn’t identify any third-party caller, much less plausibly allege” the caller was acting as Charter’s “agent,” it said. He thus fails to even allege the caller’s Florida contacts can be imputed to Charter, and the court should dismiss the complaint “for that reason alone,” it said.

The jurisdictional evidence also confirms Halawani can’t establish that Charter is “vicariously liable for the unidentified caller’s contacts with Florida,” said the motion. As a “threshold matter,” Charter isn’t vicariously liable for the Florida contacts of independent contractors, “because they control their own day-to-day operations,” it said. Charter only permits “a select few independent contractors to place outbound marketing calls in a manner consistent with state and federal law,” it said. “That alone precludes specific jurisdiction.”