TCPA Plaintiff Seeks Dismissal of Defendant's Insurance Fraud Counterclaim

Robert Clough seeks the dismissal of Plymouth Rock’s counterclaim in which the insurer alleges Clough violated the New Jersey Insurance Fraud Prevention Act by running a “cottage industry” of filing “sham” Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawsuits (see 2402200001), said the plaintiff’s brief Thursday (docket 2:21-cv-19343) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark in support of his motion to dismiss. The counterclaim alleges that Clough falsely misrepresented his interest in seeking automobile insurance policies and quotes, while fraudulently using a third person’s identity without permission. He did so “solely and expressly for the purpose of concocting an otherwise meritless claim” under the TCPA, alleges Plymouth. But the counterclaim “is nothing more than a contrived attempt to intimidate and bully a consumer for daring to hold it to account for illegal telemarketing,” said Clough’s brief. The counterclaim “is frivolous on its face,” and the court should dismiss it with prejudice, it said. Plymouth sues Clough for insurance fraud, even though he “has never submitted an insurance claim to Plymouth, never applied for benefits, never been a Plymouth customer, never applied for an insurance policy from Plymouth, and never initiated any communication to Plymouth whatsoever,” said the brief. Clough “has never even communicated directly with Plymouth,” it said. To the contrary, the sole basis for Plymouth’s claim is that when its telemarketer placed an illegal unsolicited telemarketing call to Clough in August 2021, he answered the call “and played along with the telemarketer’s bogus script so that the telemarketer would divulge who was calling and why,” it said. Clough purposely stayed on the line long enough only to obtain an insurance quote, “even though he wasn’t really interested in obtaining an insurance policy,” it said. Plymouth doesn’t claim to have ever received any false information from Clough, “let alone to have ever relied upon it to its detriment or otherwise,” it said. Plymouth alleges that “some unidentified third party,” not the insurer itself, provided the insurance quote and that that was the end of the matter, it said. Clough didn’t respond to the quote, inquire further, or apply for any insurance policy, and the company “fails to allege how any of this impacted Plymouth in the slightest,” it said. Plymouth “identifies no cognizable damages or harm whatsoever,” it said.