ELAINE E. BUCKLO, District Judge.
In this action, plaintiff alleges on behalf of herself and a class that defendant violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ("TCPA") by sending unwanted automated text messages. Griffith's allegations are straightforward. She claims that after signing up to receive daily automated "Healthy Tips" via text message and receiving such messages for a period of time, she attempted to unsubscribe from the service by replying to them with the word "STOP" and similar messages indicating that she no longer wished to subscribe to the service. Despite her efforts, the texts continued for many months. Plaintiff estimates that she received approximately eighty texts after her first attempt to stop them. Before me are plaintiff's motion for class certification; her motion to file a third amended complaint to amend the class definition consistently with the one proposed in her class certification motion; and defendant's motion to strike the declaration of Lisa Mullins, an expert on whose opinions plaintiff relies to support her class certification motion. For the reasons that follow, the class certification motion and the motion to amend are granted, and the motion to strike is denied.
Plaintiff's motion seeks to certify the following class:
A proposed class "must always meet the Rule 23(a) requirements of numerosity, typicality, commonality, and adequacy of representation." Messner v. Northshore University HealthSystem, 669 F.3d 802, 811 (7th Cir. 2012). Because plaintiff seeks to certify a class under Rule 23(b)(3), she must further establish: "(1) that the questions of law or fact common to the members of the proposed class predominate over questions affecting only individual class members; and (2) that a class action is superior to other available methods of resolving the controversy. Id. Plaintiff bears the burden of showing that a preponderance of the evidence supports each element. Id.
It is undisputed that the proposed class meets the numerosity requirement, as defendant's discovery indicates that it contains more than 2,200 individuals. Defendant does not dispute that the proposed class is sufficiently numerous. Nor does defendant meaningfully contest commonality, as it focuses on perceived evidentiary inadequacies without tethering them to a reasoned discussion of what commonality requires. The central analytical issue is whether common questions bearing on defendants' liability yield answers that are common to the class. See Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 350 (2011) (commonality requires that class members' claims "depend upon a common contention . . . of such a nature that it is capable of classwide resolution—which means that determination of its truth or falsity will resolve an issue that is central to the validity of each one of the claims in one stroke."). Plaintiff identifies several questions that seem to fit the bill—including whether sending the message identified in the class amounts to revocation of consent and whether the equipment used to send the messages at issue meet the requirements of an "automatic telephone dialing system—and defendant's insistence that plaintiff offers no "evidence, no proposed analytical framework, no litigation plan" does not persuade me otherwise. As for the remaining requirements of Rule 23(a), defendant does not dispute that plaintiff's claim arises from the same course of conduct as that giving rise to the class claim, thus satisfying typicality, see De La Fuente v. Stokely-Van Camp, Inc., 713 F.3d 225, 232 (7th Cir. 1983), or that the named plaintiff and class counsel are adequate representatives. For these reasons, I am satisfied that Rule 23(a)(1) is satisfied.
Defendant's principal objections to class certification are: 1) that plaintiff's motion articulates a different class than the one proposed in her complaint; 2) that the proposed class is not ascertainable and is fail-safe; and 3) that the proposed class fails Rule 23(b)'s predominance and superiority requirements. None of these objections requires extended analysis.
On the issue of class definition, it is not uncommon for courts to modify the proposed class at the certification stage to avoid such problems as over-inclusivity and fail-safeness. See Messner, 669 F.3d 802, 825 (7th Cir. 2012) (endorsing the approach); Streeter v. Sheriff of Cook County, 256 F.R.D. 609, 615 (N.D. Ill. 2009) (certifying modified class to avoid ambiguity in class definition); Hinman v. M and M Rental Center, Inc., 545 F.Supp.2d 802, 808 (N.D. Ill. 2008) (certifying modified class). In this case, the modified definition clarifies the dates of the class period and narrows the proposed class by confining it to individuals who received automated "Healthy Tips" text messages (as opposed to any automated text messages) and who sent one of two precisely worded messages to defendant in response. I am not persuaded that defendant is any way prejudiced by allowing these refinements, and the law of this circuit does not mandate denial of certification on the principle that plaintiff must stick to the definition proposed in her complaint. Although I am not convinced that it is necessary to amend the complaint to reflect the modified class definition, plaintiffs' motion for leave to do so is granted.
On the issue of ascertainability, the law of this circuit is clear: a class that is "defined clearly and based on objective criteria" is ascertainable, even if its members may be difficult to identify. Mullins v. Direct Digital, LLC, 795 F.3d 654, 659 (7th Cir. 2015). The proposed class again fits the bill. The class definition is neither imprecise nor amorphous, nor does membership depend on subjective criteria. Defendant points to a litany of hypotheticals, including that a class member "could have blocked text messages from Healthy Tips, lost or disposed of her phone, discontinued her cellular service, or otherwise acted to no longer receive the messages," Opp. at 7, but none of these concerns suggests that the class fails to meet the standard the Seventh Circuit has articulated for ascertainability. Moreover, even assuming the analysis requires inquiry into the ease or difficulty with which class members can reliably be identified, plaintiff proposes several methods for doing so, including through the services of an experienced class action administration firm with access resources for identifying class members based on known phone numbers and/or enlisting the help of cellular carriers whose records can be used to correlate cell phone numbers with the individuals who used them.
This leaves only the issues of predominance and superiority.
For the foregoing reasons, plaintiff's class certification motion is granted. The class is certified as defined above.