The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) prohibited robocalls to cellphones except in emergencies or with the recipient’s consent. Jason Saggio and Jude Furr, on behalf of a proposed nationwide class, alleged that Defendant Medicredit, a medical debt collector, erroneously and unlawfully placed robocalls to their cellphones to collect debts they didn’t owe. Plaintiffs proposed a class consisting of persons and entities in the United States to whom Defendant placed a robocall, between September 26, 2018, and the date of certification, to a cellphone number that was not assigned to a person with past-due medical debt.
Plaintiffs retained Carla Peak as an expert in class action notice and administration. In discovery, Defendant produced spreadsheets of phone numbers designated as wrong numbers robocalled during the class period. Plaintiffs retained Peak to describe the notification process that Verita would undertake to effectuate notice to potential class members if this Court were to certify the proposed class.
Defendant sought to exclude Peak’s testimony because (1) she is unqualified in data analytics and class member identification, (2) her proposed method for generating a notice list is unreliable for purposes of demonstrating ascertainability, and (3) her expertise in class notice after certification has no relevance to ascertainability as a prerequisite for class certification.
Class Action Expert Witness
Carla A. Peak served as the Vice President of Legal Notification Services for Verita Global, which specializes in comprehensive class action administration services.
Peak has more than 20 years of industry experience and has been involved in all aspects of the design and implementation of class action notice planning. She has served as an expert in over one hundred cases involving class action notice plans. Peak has a bachelor’s degree in sociology and an MBA.
Discussion by the Court
Verita would provide Defendant’s list of wrong numbers to a database aggregator and identity verification service provider such as PacificEast, Nexxa, or Lexis Nexis. That company would perform a reverse look-up search to locate names and addresses associated with the cellphone numbers that received Defendant’s robocalls during the class period. If one search leaves some numbers unidentified, the list could be provided to another company for another search, as their databases can vary. Addresses are checked against a database maintained by the United States Postal Service. The results of the searches can be cross-referenced with Defendant’s collection records to verify that debtors are excluded from the mailing list.
Notice was sent to all potential class members identified through the search process. Any notices returned undeliverable are re-sent to forwarding addresses if available, or further searches can be conducted using other databases. When necessary, Verita can undertake additional notification methods, such as paid media campaigns and messages to social media accounts of the targeted numbers.
Peak opined that this methodology “is consistent with other notice plans that have been utilized in similar court-approved TCPA class actions and has been deemed to provide the best notice practicable under the circumstances in those matters.” She noted that a success rate of at least 70% is considered high, according to the Judges’ Class Action Notice and Claims Process Checklist published by the Federal Judicial Center. Peak cautioned that she offered no opinion or certainty of Verita’s ability to precisely identify individual bona fide members of the class; she opined only on how to best effectuate optimal notice to potential class members. When asked how individual members would be identified, she explained that they would self-identify by responding to the notice.
Analysis
Defendant centrally argued that Peak isn’t an expert on ascertainability, and her opinions on post-certification notice aren’t reliable or relevant when analyzing ascertainability as a criterion for certification.
On the merits of ascertainability, Defendant postulates several scenarios where a person who received a robocall might not be the registered subscriber (i.e., owner) of the number as identified by a search.
Put simply, Defendant sought to exclude Peak’s testimony because she can’t guarantee perfectly accurate identification of every class member. Here, Defendant has already produced call logs identifying wrong numbers and the date reported as such. The Court has ordered additional production of more detailed logs specific to each phone number, including the dates of each call. Peak proposes to use Defendant’s data to identify potential class members, with cross-referencing and verification steps to optimize accuracy.
The Court found that Peak’s expert opinion is relevant to assist the Court in its evaluation of ascertainability. Separately, the Court finds Peak’s opinion relevant to manageability as a component of superiority under Rule 23(b)(3). Further, the Court found Peak’s methodology reliable, as demonstrated through its wide acceptance and implementation by district courts throughout the country.
Finally, Defendant contended that Peak isn’t qualified to opine on class member identification because she doesn’t conduct the searches herself. Rather, Verita’s operations team performs the technical work and Peak merely “runs a media team.” This argument discounts Peak’s experience and advancement in the industry and ignores the structural realities of the workplace. The Court finds it entirely reasonable that an expert at Peak’s executive level would collaborate with technical staff to effectuate database queries of this nature.
Held
The Court denied the Defendant’s motion to exclude the testimony of Plaintiff’s class notice expert, Carla Peak.
Key Takeaway
The Court found expert Peak qualified to opine on the best process and procedures to identify potential class members and ensure optimal notice using Defendant’s call logs and reverse look-up searches. According to Eighth Circuit precedent, Defendant’s call logs provide objective criteria to ascertain the proposed class. Accordingly, the Court found Peak’s opinions relevant to assist the Court in evaluating whether the class is ascertainable. Separately, the Court finds Peak’s opinions relevant to the question of class manageability. The Court found Peak’s methodology reliable in that it has been widely utilized and recognized to identify potential class members and provide the best possible notice practicable in numerous class actions, including TCPA wrong number cases.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Saggio V. Medicredit, Inc. |
| Docket Number: | 4:22cv1005 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, Missouri Eastern |
| Order Date: | December 09, 2025 |
Leave a Reply