MIAMI — A U.S. magistrate judge partially granted a motion involving an expert witness in a case against Pet Supermarket Inc.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres granted the defendant's motion to exclude the opinion of Randall Snyder regarding whether the proposed class was ascertainable. The judge denied the defendant's motion to exclude Snyder as unqualified, denied the motion to exclude Snyder from the supplemental expert report and denied a motion by the plaintiff, Troy Eldridge, to strike the defendant's motion to strike.
Regarding class certification, Torres found that Snyder's opinion was "nothing more than what a fact finder could comprehend through non-expert witnesses and third-party sources," and was not at the level of an expert witness.
The 2018 class action lawsuit was filed by Eldridge alleging that Pet Supermarket would send numerous advertising text messages to him and others through an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS).
Eldridge claims he visited the Pet Supermarket in Miami to buy some things for his dog and learned that he could win a year's supply of free pet food if he texted the word "pets" to 650-47, so he did so on Dec. 19, 2017.
Two months later, Eldridge received another text message from the pet store that included an advertisement, according to the suit.
Eldridge claims the defendant had retained his phone number from the pet food raffle to use to send advertisement texts, which violated the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).
Over the next several months, Eldridge received five more text messages from the pet store, which he claims invaded his privacy and were an intrusion. He claims the texts wasted his time and depleted his cell phone battery, according to the suit.
Eldridge claims the defendant knowingly and/or willfully violated the TCPA.
Eldridge is seeking injunctive relief prohibiting TCPA violations from the pet store in the future, $500 for himself and each class member in statutory damages and up to $1,500 in treble damages for himself and each class member. He is represented by David P. Milian and Ruben Conitzer of Carey Rodriguez Milian Gonya LLP in Miami.