Trade Law Daily is a Warren News publication.

Pa. GOP Committee’s TCPA Claims vs. Twilio Should Be Dismissed: Memorandum

The Republican Committee of Chester County (RCCC), Pennsylvania, wrongly seeks to hold Twilio financially responsible for any judgment in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act case arising from RCCC’s transmission of unwanted election-related text messages, said Twilio’s memorandum of law Tuesday…

Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article

Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.

(docket 2:22-cv-05185) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Mark Fidanza, the original plaintiff, alleges the RCCC inundated his cellphone with 17 text messages between Oct. 19 and Election Day Nov. 8 (see 2212280028). The RCCC responded in a May 5 third-party complaint that alleged its vendor Buzz360 teamed with Twilio to hire Onvoy to deliver the text messages to Fidanza’s phone (see 2305040004). But Twilio had “no legal or contractual relationship” with the RCCC, said its memorandum. There’s notably “no reference to or mention of Twilio” in Fidanza’s initial complaint against the RCCC, in any of Fidanza’s subsequent amendments, or in the answers of RCCC and Buzz360 that followed, it said. From the four “conclusory sentences” that the RCCC’s third-party complaint contains, Twilio can’t discern any “cognizable cause of action against it, any supposedly wrongful conduct by it, or any obligation whatsoever that Twilio has to RCCC,” it said. The RCCC’s allegations don’t meet “the threshold requirements under Rule 8 of a short and plain statement of a claim, supported by plausible allegations of fact,” it said. “On that basis alone,” it said, the RCCC’s complaint against Twilio should be dismissed.