MINNEAPOLIS (Legal Newsline) – A federal judge has denied the Trump campaign’s motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit against it over text messages sent to Democrats who say they didn’t want them.
The ruling keeps alive a lawsuit in Minnesota federal court, where lawyers for Donald J. Trump For President, Inc., had asked Judge John Tunheim to either throw the case out, stay it or send it to arbitration.
The campaign said it wasn’t using an autodialer and thus not subject to Telephone Consumer Protection Act penalties of either $500 or $1,500 per text.
“The Trump Campaign correctly argues that some courts have required more specific allegations of would-be TCPA plaintiffs,” Tunheim wrote.
“However, at the motion to dismiss phase, it seems reasonable to require ‘plaintiff to provide the circumstances surrounding the calls that led him to believe the defendant had used an ATDS,’ without requiring him to ‘elaborate on the specific technical details of a defendant’s alleged ATDS.’”
Discovery to follow will determine whether the Trump campaign used an autodialer.
“Without discovery, Plaintiffs have no ability, beyond attempting to call the texting number and comparing text messages with one another, to determine the mechanics of the Trump Campaign’s dialing machinery,” Tunheim wrote.
“Their allegations are plausible, and that is all that is required at this phase of litigation.”
The Trump campaign failed to show one of the named plaintiffs agreed to receive the texts, Tunheim also ruled in denying the arbitration request.
Dan Pederson, Connor Olson and Shell Wheeler complained about receiving four text messages from Donald J. Trump for President Inc. They initially filed their complaint on Oct. 18, after they said they received unsolicited text messages about tickets to a campaign rally, were sent to Trump's campaign website, or were sent messages dealing with the hearings and investigations into the president.
The plaintiffs said they are Democrats who have never contributed to nor attended a rally for Trump.