Home Depot Monitoring of Outbound Calls CIPA Class Action

Home Depot USA, Inc. specializes in tools, materials, appliances, and services for home improvement. But the complaint for this class action claims that the company violates the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) by recording, intercepting, or monitoring the calls its representatives make on its outgoing customer service lines.

The complaint says that CIPA, which is part of California’s Penal Code, “prohibits the recording or monitoring of a communication made to or from a cellular or cordless telephone without the consent of all parties to the communication.” But when Home Depot makes calls to customers, the complaint alleges, these outbound calls are recorded.

The complaint cites at least two Home Depot customer service numbers on which it claims this monitoring takes place, alleging the company “recorded and/or monitored calls without warning or disclosing to recipients of outbound calls that their calls might be recorded or monitored.”

The plaintiff in this case, Mike Clark-Alonso, bought a gas weed-eater. The outbound calls he received from Home Depot were about the repair or return of this weed-eater, the complaint alleges, and they were made to his cell phone on more than one occasion during August and September of 2022.

During these calls, the complaint alleges, the conversation between the Home Depot representative and Clark-Alonso was recorded or monitored. However, the complaint claims, he was given no warning or disclosure of this at the beginning of the call and did not give his consent for the recording or monitoring.

On information and belief, then, the complaint alleges that this has happened to many other persons in California who were called by Home Depot, and that these calls were also “intentionally and surreptitiously” recorded or monitored. The complaint points out that notification of recording can be done very easily, with the simple message, “Calls may be recorded.” Since there was no such message or warning, the complaint claims that Clark-Alonso and others had “an objectively reasonable expectation that their calls were not being recorded and/or monitored.”

The class for this action is all California citizens who, while in California, at any time during the applicable statute of limitations period before the filing of this complaint through the date this case is resolved, received an outbound telephone call from one of Home Depot’s customer service numbers where the communication was transmitted between two cellular radio telephones, a cellular radio telephone and a landline telephone, two cordless telephone, or a cordless telephone and a cellular radio telephone, and engage in a conversation with Home Depot’s employee(s) or agent(s) and were or monitored by Home Depot without any warning or disclosure at the outset of the call.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Privacy
Tags: CIPA, Monitoring etc. Electronic Communications, Recording Telephone Calls Without Consent, Your Privacy