in Newswire Published on August 13, 2020

Subway Marketing Unit Hit with Class Action Over Alleged Unsolicited Texts Promoting Mobile App

Shinn v. Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust Ltd.

Filed: August 12, 2020 ◆§ 3:20-cv-01162

Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust has been named in a lawsuit filed by a consumer who claims she received unlawful, unsolicited text messages from the company.

Defendant(s)

Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust, Ltd

Law(s)

Telephone Consumer Protection Act

State(s)

Connecticut

Categories

Food

Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust Ltd. has been named in a proposed class action filed by a consumer who claims she received unlawful, unsolicited text messages from the company.

Per the case, the defendant, which operates as the marketing and advertising arm of the Subway brand, has used an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) to send text messages promoting the Subway mobile app.

The lawsuit, which alleges violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, explains entities such as the defendant must secure a consumer’s prior express consent before sending non-emergency text messages via an ATDS or contacting cell phone numbers listed in the National Do Not Call Registry.

Beginning in May 2020, the suit says, the plaintiff received several text messages from the defendant urging her to download the mobile app for Subway, which the complaint pegs as “the world’s largest quick-service restaurant chain by number of locations” with over 44,000 restaurants in more than 110 countries.

According to the suit, the plaintiff never provided express consent to receive the spam texts to her cell phone number, which has been listed on the National Do Not Call Registry since January 2018.

The lawsuit argues Subway transmitted the texts at issue by way of an automated messaging platform capable of sending “thousands of automated text messages” without human intervention.

“The impersonal and generic nature of the subject text messages, coupled with the fact that they originated from a short-code, demonstrates that Defendant utilized an automatic telephone dialing system in transmitting the messages,” the complaint reads, charging the defendant’s alleged conduct is expressly prohibited by the TCPA absent consent from the recipient.

According to the case, the messages sent by Subway “invaded Plaintiff’s privacy, intruded upon her seclusion and solitude, constituted a nuisance, and wasted Plaintiff’s time by requiring her to interact with the messages.”

The case proposes to cover the following two classes:

“No Consent Class: All persons in the United States who from April 23, 2019 until the date of a certification order [1] received a text message on his or her cellular phone number from Defendant [2] using the same equipment used to send the text messages to Plaintiff [3] for the purpose of advertising and/or promoting Defendant’s mobile application.

DNC Class: All persons in the United States who from April 23, 2019 until the date of a certification order [1] were sent a text message by Defendant; [2] more than one time within any 12-month period; [3] where the person’s telephone number had been listed on the National Do Not Call Registry for at least thirty days; [4] for the purpose of advertising and/or promoting Defendant’s mobile application; and [5] for whom Defendant (a) did not obtain an express invitation or permission from the recipient, and (b) did not have an established business relationship with the recipient.”

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