Real estate brokerage HomeSmart International is caught up in a new TCPA class action as a result of text messages allegedly sent by two brokers– NATOSHA MOORE, and ELEAZAR MEDRANO, who are named personally in the suit.
The Complaint alleges Medrano began texting the Plaintiff–Christopher Shultz–in March, 2021. Notably the first text was sent at 1:21 am–well outside of TCPA calling hour.
Several additional texts were allegedly sent by Medrano and Shultz responded that he “had an agent” to no avail. Shultz also allegedly texted stop multiple times but the messages from Medrano allegedly continued.
Eventually Medrano’s messages stopped but about a year later Natosha Moore’s office allegedly began texting Shultz. Shutlz asked not to be contacted but the texts allegedly continued.
Plaintiff contends these texts were sent using kVCore in a blast format. HomeSmart’s Chief Industry Officer, Todd Sumney is specifically mentioned in the complaint as allegedly offering “a webinar series and podcasts where he offers text messaging scripts and instruction on generating business using these tools.”
Plaintiff seeks up to $500.00 per call for each of these texts, and is personally suing Moore and Medrano in addition to HomeSmart.
Real estate brokerages have been sued in dozens of similar cases over the years owing to the messages being sent by their agents using–amongst other systems–kVCore.
A few things jump out at me on this one.
First, these messages were from way back in 2021. HomeSmart may have gotten smart by now and cleaned up practices but it doesn’t matter–the TCPA has a four year statute of limitations, so calls made as far back as 2020 can still be sued upon today!
Second, the agents here are named PERSONALLY. Keep this in mind folks. When a TCPA violation takes place its not just the employer, brand, or franchisor that is liable–so is/are the actually person(s) responsible for sending the message. And in this case that was allegedly Moore and Medrano.
Third, the courts have not done a good job recognizing independent contractor relationships in this setting. The fact an officer of HomeSmart was allegedly encouraging agents to use mass blast technology might be enough to hold HomeSmart liable here. We will have to wait and see.
Fourth, the trend of TCPA suits attacking real estate brokerages continues. It is a really big deal.
Full complaint here: predocketComplaintFile (16)