Pet Supermarket, Inc. v. Eldridge
| Decision Date | 10 May 2023 |
| Docket Number | 3D21-1174 |
| Parties | Pet Supermarket, Inc., Appellant, v. Troy Eldridge, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
An Appeal from a non-final order from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County Lower Tribunal No. 20-6035, William Thomas Judge.
Kelley Drye &Warren LLP and Becca J. Wahlquist (Los Angeles CA); Shutts &Bowen LLP and Frank A. Zacherl and Daniel E Nordby (Tallahassee), for appellant.
Carey Rodriguez Milian, LLP and David P. Milian and Juan J Rodriguez and Jennifer M. Hernandez, for appellee.
Before FERNANDEZ, C.J., and SCALES and LOBREE, JJ.
Pet Supermarket, Inc. seeks review of the trial court's nonfinal class certification order under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.130(a)(3)(C)(vi). Pet Supermarket primarily contends that the plaintiff and putative class representative, Troy Eldridge, lacks standing to pursue this suit. We agree, reverse the class certification, and direct that the case be dismissed.[1]
Eldridge visited a Pet Supermarket store in December 2017 in Miami, Florida. During the visit, Eldridge learned about the store's promotion in which customers could text the word "PETS" to the short code "65047" and be entered into a contest to win free dog food for a year. Eldridge gave his phone to one of Pet Supermarket's employees, who texted "PETS" from Eldridge's phone to the short code. Eldridge immediately received two text messages:
Eldridge received text messages again on February 24, 2018, April 20, 2018, May 11, 2018, May 25, 2018, and June 8, 2018. All of the texts contained the message "Reply STOP to end," and concerned promotional or advertisement information.
After receiving the texts, Eldridge filed a putative class action against Pet Supermarket in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida alleging a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA"), 47 U.S.C. § 227(b), which is a federal statute prohibiting use of "automatic telephone dialing systems to call residential or cellular telephone lines without the consent of the called party," Salcedo v. Hanna, 936 F.3d 1162, 1166 (11th Cir. 2019). Eldridge alleged that Pet Supermarket violated the TCPA by sending him seven unauthorized text messages. The federal district court dismissed Eldridge's complaint for lack of standing, finding that under binding authority from the United States Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Salcedo, Eldridge's allegations of loss of privacy, wasted time, and intrusion upon seclusion did not constitute a concrete injury in fact for Article III standing purposes. Eldridge v. Pet Supermarket Inc., 446 F.Supp.3d 1063, 1070-72 (S.D. Fla. 2020). In rejecting Eldridge's claim of an injury based on loss of privacy, the district court found that "[l]ike the plaintiff in Salcedo, Plaintiff 'has not alleged that he was in his home when he received [the] message[s],' or 'anything like enjoying dinner at home with his family and having the domestic peace shattered by the ringing of the telephone,' or any similar scenarios." Id. at 1070 (quoting Salcedo, 936 F.3d at 1170, 1172). Concerning Eldridge's claim that the text messages depleted his cell phone battery or consumed his data plan, the district court found that Eldridge's allegations did not survive a factual attack for lack of standing because he "has not provided any evidentiary support to show that the texts at issue consumed his phone's battery or data and messaging plan, or caused him to incur any specific charges." Id. at 1072.
Based on the same text messages, Eldridge then brought a TCPA suit against Pet Supermarket in state court, asserting a claim on behalf of himself and a putative class. Eldridge alleged that the "quantity and quality of messages . . . constituted a barrage of messages that caused [him] to incur repeated aggravation by annoying him, costing him resources, and interfering with his daily activities such as driving safely or peacefully putting his children to bed." Compl. at ¶ 34. Particularly, as to the February 24 text, Eldridge alleged that it "had the effect of blasting through and disrupting the Plaintiff's domestic weekend peace." Id. at ¶ 25. Eldridge further claimed that the texts "invaded [his] privacy, intruded upon his seclusion and solitude, wasted his time by requiring him to open and read the messages, depleted his cell phone battery, caused him to incur a usage allocation deduction to his text messaging or data plan, and took up approximately 190 bytes of memory" on his cell phone. Id. at ¶ 35.
Eldridge moved for class certification, which Pet Supermarket opposed. Pet Supermarket also moved for summary judgment, arguing that Eldridge lacked standing to sue under the TCPA because he had not suffered a concrete injury. Eldridge responded that because Florida's standing requirements are "more relaxed" than the federal standing requirements under Article III of the United States Constitution, he need not show any actual injury and may proceed on the basis of Pet Supermarket's violation of the TCPA alone.[2] Eldridge also argued that he had standing even under a more rigid, federal-style concrete injury standard, because he had sufficiently alleged both tangible and intangible harms. In support of this assertion, Eldridge pointed to his allegations that the February 24 text "interfered with his domestic peace"-an allegation that the district court had concluded was fatally missing in his federal complaint-and that he had suffered harm in the form of battery depletion, data plan loss, and use of his cell phone's memory.
The trial court heard Pet Supermarket's summary judgment motion and Eldridge's class certification motion. Thereafter, the trial court denied Pet Supermarket's summary judgment motion and ruled that Eldridge had standing to pursue his TCPA claim. The trial court found that Eldridge had standing because he Order Den. Mot. Summ. J. p.5. The trial court also granted Eldridge's motion for class certification. This appeal followed.
This Court reviews the lower court's decision to certify a class for abuse of discretion. Sosa v. Safeway Premium Fin. Co., 73 So.3d 91, 105 (Fla. 2011). However, before determining whether the requirements for class certification are met, a trial court must address the threshold issue of whether the class representative has standing. Id. at 116; see also United Auto. Ins. Co. v. Diagnostics of S. Florida, Inc., 921 So.2d 23, 25 (Fla. 3d DCA 2006). "A trial court's decision as to whether a party has satisfied the standing requirement is reviewed de novo." Sosa, 73 So.3d at 116.
Eldridge first asserts that because "the doctrine of standing does not exist in Florida 'in the rigid sense employed in the federal system,'" Allstate Ins. Co. v Kaklamanos, 843 So.2d 885, 895 (Fla. 2003) (quoting Dep't of Revenue v. Kuhnlein, 646 So.2d 717, 720 (Fla.1994)), he need not allege or demonstrate an actual injury in order to have standing in a Florida state court. Specifically, Eldridge argues that his allegation of a bare procedural violation of the TCPA is sufficient to establish his standing to pursue a class action claim for a violation of the federal statute. To be sure, the fact that Eldridge's allegations fail to satisfy a federal court's standing requirement does not mean that the same holds true in a Florida court, as we are not constrained by the "hard floor" of injury in fact imposed by Article III jurisdiction. Summers v. Earth Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 497 (2009); see ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U.S. 605, 617 (1989) ().
Nonetheless, it is equally true that "Florida law also imports an injury in fact requirement under our standing framework." Saleh v. Miami Gardens Square One, Inc., 353 So.3d 1253, 1255 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023) (citing State v. J.P., 907 So.2d 1101, 1113 n.4 (Fla. 2004)). Relying on decisions by the United States Supreme Court, in J.P., the Florida Supreme Court "articulated the three requirements for standing," Citizens for Responsible Dev., Inc. v. City of Dania Beach, 358 So.3d 1 (Fla. 4th DCA 2023), stating as follows:
There are three requirements that constitute the "irreducible constitutional minimum" for standing. Vt. Agency of Natural Res. v. United States ex rel. Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 771, 120 S.Ct. 1858, 146 L.Ed.2d 836 (2000). First, a plaintiff must demonstrate an "injury in fact," which is "concrete," "distinct and palpable," and "actual or imminent." Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155, 110 S.Ct. 1717, 109 L.Ed.2d 135 (1990). Second, a plaintiff must establish "a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of." Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). Third, a plaintiff must show "a 'substantial likelihood' that the requested relief will remedy the alleged injury in fact." Stevens, 529 U.S. at 771, 120 S.Ct. 1858.
907 So.2d at 1113 n.4 (emphasis added); accord Southam v Red Wing Shoe Co., Inc., 343 So.3d 106, 109 (Fla. 4th DCA), review denied, SC22-1052, 2022 WL 16848677 (Fla. Nov. 10, 2022); DeSantis...
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