Court denies Humana’s request to exclude expert testimony in TCPA robocall case, impacting the ongoing legal battle.
In a significant legal development, a federal judge has denied Humana Inc.’s attempt to exclude expert testimony in an ongoing class action lawsuit. This case accuses Humana of breaching the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) through persistent robocalls to individuals who were not their customers.
The plaintiff, David Elliot, claims that Humana incessantly made prerecorded calls to his phone number, despite being informed multiple times that they had contacted the wrong person. Notably, Elliot was never a Humana customer, and he argues that thousands might have suffered similar disturbances over a four-year span.
To support his motion for class certification, Elliot enlisted the expertise of Anya Verkhovskaya, President and CEO of Class Experts Group, LLC. Verkhovskaya, with vast experience as a court-approved expert in TCPA cases, was tasked with demonstrating that potential class members could be accurately identified and informed.
Her analysis drew upon a declaration by Christina Peters-Stasiewicz, Vice President at Class Experts Group, who used Structured Query Language (SQL) to scrutinize Humana’s call data. This analysis identified 8,627 unique phone numbers that had been either flagged as wrong numbers on Humana’s internal do-not-call lists or had received a prerecorded message following a call marked as “disconnected.”
These phone numbers were categorized into two distinct groups. Using this data, Verkhovskaya designed a multi-step notification strategy, which included reverse lookups, cross-referencing subscriber information with carrier data, and issuing subpoenas to telephone carriers to identify account holders. Subsequently, potential class members would receive claim forms to verify if they received a wrong-number call and to confirm their non-customer status with Humana.
Humana filed motions to exclude Verkhovskaya’s expert report and testimony and to strike down Peters-Stasiewicz’s declaration. They argued that Verkhovskaya lacked formal data analytics training, improperly relied on an undisclosed expert, and employed an unreliable methodology. They also contended that Peters-Stasiewicz’s declaration was expert testimony not properly disclosed.
Judge Rebecca Grady Jennings dismissed both motions. The court affirmed Verkhovskaya’s qualifications under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, based on her two decades of experience in class notification and TCPA litigation. Her lack of a formal degree in data science was deemed irrelevant due to her specialized knowledge and practical expertise.
The court determined her methodology, including the “reverse append” process and validation via sworn claim forms, to be reliable and pertinent at the class certification stage. Humana’s objections were ruled to concern the weight of the evidence rather than its admissibility.
Peters-Stasiewicz’s declaration was classified not as expert testimony but as a straightforward summary of Humana’s data, admissible especially at the class certification stage, where reliable evidence is considered even if it may not be admissible at trial.
Humana’s argument that Verkhovskaya’s methodology was flawed because it failed to independently identify Elliot was also rejected. The court referenced precedent indicating that failure to capture a named plaintiff’s data does not invalidate the methodology, especially when the data is derived from the defendant’s own records.
The court stressed that class certification does not require evidence to meet the stringent admissibility standards applied at trial. The evidence provided by Verkhovskaya and Peters-Stasiewicz met the reliability threshold necessary for certification proceedings.
Though the case involves one of the nation’s largest health insurers, the focus is solely on telemarketing conduct governed by federal statute. This ruling underscores the legal exposure for insurance carriers and administrators concerning TCPA compliance and the operational risks associated with automated outreach programs, particularly when call records may later substantiate class action claims.
Case: David Elliot v. Humana Inc.
Court: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky
Date: March 24, 2025
Judge: Rebecca Grady Jennings
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