A suit was filed in the Central District of California on Wednesday by plaintiff Peter Morris (both individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated) against defendant Spore Life Sciences US Inc. (SLS) and a group of unknown individuals. Morris has filed suit based on allegations that the defendant violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
According to their website, Spore Life Sciences provides a subscription service for functional mushroom-based treatments.
In October of 2021, the defendant began contacting Morris at their cellular telephone number in an attempt to solicit him to purchase their services, the complaint said. The defendant allegedly engaged in the unlawful use of an artificial or prerecorded voice during its calls to Morris. The plaintiff asserts that each time he answered the phone or sent the call to voicemail, he was met with “various male and female voices, all prerecorded” saying “the same exact sales script nearly verbatim, if not verbatim.”
The plaintiff’s cellular service is set up such that they incur a charge for each incoming call they receive. The defendant’s numerous calls were made without a prior business relationship being established between SLS and Morris and without Morris’s prior express consent. Morris contends that the defendant “employs scraping technology to collect phone numbers off of publicly listed websites, in an effort to generate sales leads” and that the calls are a widely experienced nuisance that has been complained about over various online forums.
The plaintiff seeks class certification for all individuals who have received pre-recorded solicitation calls from the defendant without the consent of the individual. The complaint also cites negligent, knowing, and willful violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act on behalf of both Morris and the class. Morris is seeking statutory and treble damages, class certification, a trial by jury, as well as relief deemed proper by the Court.
