Applebee’s Call Recording Class Action Lawsuit Sent to Federal Court

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Applebee’s International Inc. faces a proposed call recording class action lawsuit, which alleges that the popular restaurant chain neglected to notify Applebee’s consumers that all customer calls received by the company are recorded.

Lead plaintiff Joneeta Byrd, a resident of California, originally filed this Applebee’s class action lawsuit in California state court last month, alleging that in November 2013, when she called and spoke to an Applebee’s customer representative, she was not told that the call would be recorded.

According to the class action lawsuit, “Defendant [Applebee’s] did not, at any point during the telephone conversation with Defendant’s customer service representative, advise Plaintiff that the call was being recorded. Plaintiff did not give either express or implied consent to the recording.”

Byrd had expected that her wireless call to the company was private and only learned after the fact that all Applebee’s calls are recorded and that this fact is not disclosed to customers.

The Applebee’s call recording class action lawsuit seeks to represent a Class that includes: “All persons located in California whose wireless telephone conversations with Defendant were intentionally recorded without disclosure by Defendant at any time during the statute of limitations period through the date of final judgment in this action.”

It is estimated that the proposed Class includes at least 10,000 consumers in the California and the expected statutory damages may exceed $5 million. In light of the allegations, the estimated numerosity of the proposed Class, and the potential damages, Applebee’s has removed the call recording class action lawsuit to California federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act.

According to the class action lawsuit complaint, Byrd claims that Applebee’s failure to inform consumers of recording calls violates California Penal Code Section 632.7, which prohibits “the intentional, non-consensual recording of any telephone communication without the consent of all parties where at least one party to the conversation is either using a cordless or cellular telephone. No expectation of confidentiality or privacy is required, nor is any other wrongful or surreptitious intent required — only that the defendant intended to record the communication.”

This same penal code provision prohibiting companies from eavesdropping on calls, whether or not the call was made with an expectation of privacy, was used in another class action lawsuit against Hilton Worldwide Inc. earlier this year. Because of this provision, the Ninth Circuit court was able to reinstate the class action lawsuit alleging Hilton recorded customer service calls.

However, the district court again dismissed the Hilton class action lawsuit on July 15, finding that California’s eavesdropping law does not apply to recordings made by call participants or to companies that engage in service observing monitoring of calls. It is not yet clear if the Applebee’s class action lawsuit could fall into this same exemption from the eavesdropping law.

Joneeta Byrd is represented by Scott J. Ferrell, Richard H. Hikida, David W. Reid and Victoria C. Knowles of Newport Trial Group.

The Applebee’s Call Recording Class Action Lawsuit is Joneeta Byrd v. Applebee’s International Inc., Case No. 3:14-cv-01697, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.