A bit of background, Marine Srapian filed a putative class action lawsuit against Mattress Firm, Inc. in the Los Angeles Superior Court (state court) for alleged violations of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, Section 631(a).

In sum, Srapian alleges that she called Mattress Firm’s telephone multiple times from March 24, 2023 through March 28, 2023.

Srapian stated she spoke with an IVR system and human agents of Mattress Firm to discuss a mattress she was interested in purchasing and ultimately did purchase.

However, when speaking with the IVR system, Srapian alleges she was not aware the system was being provided by a third party, NICE, rather than Mattress firm.

Srapian alleges that NICE, through CXone Services, “eavesdropped” on her entire conversation with Mattress Firm and the live agents, monitored those conversations, and recorded and transcribed those conversations in real time.

Notably, Srapian alleges that Mattress Firm failed to inform her that prior to the recording, a third party was listening in on the conversation.

Based on these allegations, Srapian seeks to represent a statewide class of similar individuals. The class is defined as follows:

All California residents who called Mattress Firm’s customer service line while in California and whose conversations with Mattress firm were intercepted and recorded by NICE.

Just yesterday, Mattress Firm filed a notice of removal to the Central District of California!

For those of you who don’t know what a removal is, it is when a defendant transfers a case from state court to federal court. This typically occurs when the defendant believes that the federal court is a more appropriate venue for the case due to various factors.

In order to remove based on the Class Action Fairness Act, three requirements must be met: (1) the class must include more than 100 putative class members, (2) minimal diversity of citizenship between the parties, and (3) the amount in controversy exceeds $5,000,000.

Now you must be thinking, $5,000,000?! That is an incredibly high threshold.

BUT, recall that CIPA provides for statutory damages of $5,000 per violation. So, if you do the math, there must be a minimum of 1,000 members in the putative class for removal to be proper.

More than 100 Class Members

In the Complaint, Srapian alleges the number of class members “amounts to thousands, if not millions of persons.” Therefore, Mattress Firm suggests this requirement is met.

Minimal Diversity of Citizenship

Minimal diversity of citizenship exists when “any member of a class of plaintiffs is a citizen of a State different from any defendant.” 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2)(A).

Plaintiff is a citizen of California, and the class members would be citizens of California due to the class definition.

Mattress firm is a citizen of Delaware and Texas.

Therefore, minimal diversity is met.

Amount in Controversy Exceeds $5M

Again, Mattress Firm points to Srapian’s allegation that she seeks to represent “thousands, if not millions of persons.”

Notably, Mattress Firm essentially conceded that at least 1,000 individuals would have been called during the class period.

Thus, Mattress Firm argues removal is proper under CAFA.

Now that the case has been removed, the case will either proceed in federal court or the Court, on its own, can challenge the removal.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.

Marine Srapian v. Mattress Firm, Inc., Case No.: 2:24-cv-02508