An update to our earlier reporting, “A New Firm Joins the Quiet Hours Gold Rush.”
A Reader Tip
After our earlier piece on Faythe Gutierrez and PLG Damage Attorneys, PLLC ran, we received a tip that our reporting was incomplete: other attorneys at the same firm have been filing a parallel wave of quiet-hours cases in Florida federal court, and our initial search hadn’t surfaced them.
The tip checks out. Our docket sweep had keyed off the firm name Gutierrez uses in her appearances — “PLG Damage Attorneys, PLLC”. Two of her colleagues list the firm on the dockets under a different name for the firm: Property Litigation Group, which appears variously as “Property Litigation Group,” “Property Litigation Group PLLC,” and “Property Litigation Group, PLLC.” Once both naming conventions are pulled together, the docket looks materially larger than what we first reported.
As of this morning, we count 77 quiet-hours cases filed by the firm across three filing attorneys and a roughly six-week window beginning in early April.
Three Filers and Three States in Play
Faythe Gutierrez has filed 45 of the 77 cases. Every one of her filings is in a California federal court — 19 in the Central District, 11 in the Eastern District, 10 in the Southern District, and 5 in the Northern District. She is the only attorney registered under the firm name “PLG Damage Attorneys, PLLC.”
Joseph A. Varona has filed 16 cases, all in the Southern District of Florida. The docket lists him as an attorney with “Property Litigation Group, PLLC.”
Vinit R. Venkatesh has filed 15 cases — 11 in the Southern District of Florida, 2 in the Middle District of Florida, and 2 in Texas federal court (one in the Southern District of Texas and one in the Northern District of Texas). He lists the firm name variously as “Property Litigation Group” and “Property Litigation Group PLLC.” (He appears in dockets as both “Vinit Roy Venkatesh” and “Vin Roy Venkatesh.”)
The Timing Changes the Origin Story
This is the part that most directly revises our earlier framing. We had treated Gutierrez’s California filings as the apparent start of the campaign. They weren’t. The Florida docket runs earlier: the first Property Litigation Group filing in the Southern District of Florida was on April 2, 2026 — about two and a half weeks before the earliest Gutierrez filing in California on April 20, 2026. In other words, the campaign appears to have opened in Florida before it opened in California, not the other way around.
Snapshot: Repeat Plaintiffs
As we noted in our earlier piece, the campaign leans heavily on a small set of named plaintiffs who appear across multiple complaints. With the Florida docket folded in, the pattern is more pronounced: 42 of the 77 cases — 54% of the total — are brought by a plaintiff who shows up more than once.
The full list of plaintiffs appearing in two or more cases, as their names are listed on the dockets:
| Plaintiff (as docketed) | Cases | Forum(s) | Filing attorney(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hughes | 7 | C.D. Cal. | Gutierrez |
| Steele | 6 | E.D. Cal. | Gutierrez |
| Verduzco | 6 | S.D. Cal. | Gutierrez |
| Salcedo, N. | 6 | S.D. Fla. | Varona |
| Ona | 4 | S.D. Fla. | Venkatesh |
| Medina | 3 | S.D. Cal. | Gutierrez |
| Caiola | 2 | S.D. Fla. | Varona (1), Venkatesh (1) |
| Cordon | 2 | S.D. Fla. | Venkatesh |
| Klassy | 2 | E.D. Cal. | Gutierrez |
| Martinez | 2 | S.D. Fla. | Varona |
| Shavies | 2 | N.D. Cal. | Gutierrez |
Who’s Getting Sued
The complaints are templated TCPA actions under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c) and 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(c)(1), alleging marketing text messages sent before 8:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m. local time, brought as putative nationwide classes seeking statutory damages of up to $500 per violation and treble damages for willful or knowing violations. Some also allege a violation based on the number being listed on the national Do-Not-Call registry.
The defendants skew toward consumer brands with active SMS programs. A partial list of names from across the combined docket:
- Named in California cases include Jersey Mike’s Franchise Systems, Hobby Lobby Stores, H&M Fashion USA, Club Monaco U.S., Elemis USA, Compare.com Insurance Agency, Fashion Nova, Early Warning Services, Centerfield Media Parent, Credit Collection Services, and Harris & Harris.
- Named in Florida cases include AT&T Services, Crocs, Marc Jacobs International, Fashion Nova, Fabletics, Pacific Sunwear of California, Smoothie King Franchises, Playa Bowls Florida, Shoes For Crews North America, Insomniac Holdings, Payactiv, and Queensboro Industries.
- Multiple cases have been filed against some of the defendants, including Fashion Nova, LLC (5 cases), Posh Group, Inc. (5 cases), PLOTS, Inc. (2 cases).
Practical Takeaways
The firm-level exposure surface is bigger than the per-attorney number suggests. Gutierrez has filed 45 cases personally, but the firm as a whole is now in 78. A defendant resolving one Gutierrez case in California is not necessarily buying peace with the same firm in Florida, as we have seen multiple cases filed against the same Defendants.
A Note on Methodology
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Have a tip about TCPA filings, SMS-marketing enforcement, or quiet-hours litigation in your jurisdiction? Drop us a line.
