Pretty common theme right now in TCPAWorld.
Lead buyer buys a lead and makes an outbound call. Lead buyer sued by a litigator who claims “wasn’t me.” Lead buyer tries to enforce the arbitration provision–to kill the class action component of the case–and the court refuses to enforce because the Plaintiff denied visiting the website to begin with.
That fact scenario played itself out anew in Gilliam v. Prince Health, 2025 WL 1126545 (M.D. Tenn April 16, 2025).
There Prince Health bought a lead from JLN CORP d/b/a P1 Solutions who bought it from Techforcemedia LLC d/b/a Top American Insurance pertaining to website topamericaninsurance.com. (None of these companies are R.E.A.C.H. members!) The website contained an arbitration provision in its terms of use.
A visual rendering was provided to the court of the web session by either Active Propsect or Jornaya and it showed Plaintiff’s name and information being entered on the form. On that basis Prince Health tried to compel arbitration arguing plaintiff had accepted the terms and conditions and agreed to arbitrate claims arising out of the lead form submission.
Plaintiff, however, testified at deposition that he had not visited the website and it was not him who had filled out the form.
Just that simply the court denied the motion to compel arbitration. Although the court determined Prince had met its initial burden the fact Plaintiff denied visiting the website under oath was enough for the court to deny the arbitration motion and set further proceedings.
The court’s order is unclear in terms of next steps but under the Federal Arbitration Act a jury or bench trial is needed to determine whether a contract was formed and whether the case may proceed to arbitration. Of course such a proceeding is high stakes– if the plaintiff didn’t fill out the form then not only will he defeat arbitration he will also defeat any claim of consent!
And if the court finds one person didn’t fill out the form perhaps the court will question the credibility of the lead source and certify a class down the line…
So yeah, high stakes poker.
We’ll keep an eye on this and see where it goes.