Inherently Individualized Issues of Fact Cause Court to Deny Dismissal and Certification in Case Targeting Health Care Calls

Depending on whether you’re a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty kind of person, plaintiff and defendant both won or both lost when a judge in the Northern District of Illinois recently denied in one fell swoop both the defendant’s motion for summary judgment and the plaintiff’s motion for class certification. Murtoff v. My Eye Doctor, LLC, 21-2607, 2024 WL 4278033 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 24, 2024).

In a case involving health examination reminder calls to someone who was not a current patient, the plaintiff alleged that she received unwanted telemarketing telephone calls from MyEyeDr. leaving pre-recorded voice messages to remind her that she was due for her annual eye exam, in violation of the TCPA. MyEyeDr. filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that these calls were not telemarketing but rather fell under the Health Care Rule exception to the TCPA, which protects prerecorded healthcare calls (1) that concern a health-related product or service; (2) made by or on behalf of a health care provider to a patient with whom there is an established health care treatment relationship; and (3) that concern the individual health care needs of the patient recipient.