Papa John's is in legal hot water after customers say the company sent them spam messages to their mobile and now the popular pizza franchise faces a $250 million class-action lawsuit.
The plaintiffs, three people from Washington State, are standing in for thousands of customers claiming that Papa John's and a marketing firm called OnTime4U worked together to send a total of 500,000 unwanted texts in early 2010.
These customers had not given their consent to be texted with marketing information from Papa John's so by sending the unsolicited messages, the company violated the US Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991. The Act requires companies to get permission from customers before sending them text messages.
The spam texts offered deals for pizza, and some customers complained they were getting 15 or 16 texts in a row, even during the middle of the night, according Donald Heyrich, an attorney representing the class.
"After I ordered from Papa John's, my telephone started beeping with text messages advertising pizza specials," Erin Chutich, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement. "Papa John's never asked permission to send me text message advertisements."
The plaintiffs want Papa John's to pay them $500 per text, though that figure could climb as high as $1,500 per text if the judge decides that the pizza chain knowingly broke the law.
"Whether Papa John's had any involvement in franchisee-level decisions to contract with OnTime4U, and if so, the extent of that involvement is a central and disputed issue in the case," the judge's order reads. "Contrary to Papa John's position that it played no role in those decisions, Papa John's has produced documents that indicate that it did play some role in the franchisee-level decisions to hire OnTime4U."
