Williams v. PillPack LLC

5 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON 6 AT SEATTLE AARON WILLIAMS, Plaintiff, C19-5282 TSZ v. MINUTE ORDER PILLPACK LLC, 11 Defendant.

The following Minute Order is made by direction of the Court, the Honorable Thomas S. Zilly, United States District Judge: (1) Plaintiff’s Motion to Certify Class, docket no. 29, is DEFERRED. The parties are DIRECTED to each file a supplemental brief, not to exceed ten (10) pages, on or before February 5, 2021, addressing (i) whether consent to be called by third parties unaffiliated with Defendant PillPack LLC, including consent to be called by third parties using fictitious company names or “dbas,” see Response (docket no. 60 at 19), constitutes “prior express written consent” to be called by Defendant or its agents, 47 C.F.R. §§ 64.1200(a)(2), (f)(8), (f)(9); see Satterfield v. Simon & Schuster, Inc., 569 F.3d 946, (9th Cir. 2009) (concluding plaintiff’s “consent to receive promotional material by [a third party] and its affiliates and brands cannot be read as consenting to the receipt of [defendant’s] promotional material); and (ii) how this consent issue affects the Court’s analysis of whether Plaintiff has satisfied Rule 23’s commonality and predominance requirements, see True Health Chiropractic, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., 896 F.3d 923, 931 (9th Cir. 2018) (concluding that “[s]ince [defendant] bears the burden [of proving consent], the court considers only the “consent defenses that [defendant] has advanced and for which it has provided supporting evidence” in determining whether those defenses “may be sufficiently similar or overlapping to allow [plaintiff] to satisfy the predominance requirement”). Plaintiff’s Motion to Certify Class, docket no. 29, is hereby RENOTED to February 5, 2021. (2) The Court DIRECTS the parties to meet and confer and to file a Joint Status Report on or before February 5, 2021, (i) indicating when the case will be ready for trial, and how long such trial is anticipated to take; (ii) proposing related pre-trial deadlines; and (iii) indicating whether the case can be tried remotely via the ZoomGov.com platform. After reviewing the Joint Status Report, the Court intends to order a case management scheduling order pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b) as soon as possible. (3) The Clerk is directed to send a copy of this Minute Order to all counsel of record.

Dated this 14th day of January, 2021.

9 William M. McCool Clerk s/Gail Glass 11 Deputy Clerk