Visalus ordered to pay $638,125 in robocall fraud legal costs
Visalus has been ordered to pay $638,125 in legal costs.
The October 2nd order is part of a lawsuit filed against Visalus in 2015, alleging multiple violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TPCA).
Class action Plaintiff Lori Wakefield sought to recover legal costs from Visalus, following a mammoth $925,220,000 judgment in her favor in 2019.
Visalus appealed the judgment and in October 22nd, the Ninth Circuit punted the case back to the Oregon District Court for further proceedings.
The Oregon District Court opted to “proceed with claims processing and afterward evaluate the constitutionality of the judgment.”
That process is ongoing. In the meantime, in April 2024 the court
the Court further ordered ViSalus to pay claims expenses, including notice and claims administration costs.
Despite receiving an invoice from Wakefield, as of July 2024 Visalus had failed to pay up.
This promoted a motion from Wakefield on July 31st, seeking limited judgment or an order for Visalus to show cause as to why they shouldn’t be held in contempt.
Wakefield argues that a limited judgment is necessary to begin its proceedings to collect from ViSalus and eventually pay for the claims processing costs, so that class members can receive their damages.
Visalus’ response to Wakefield July motion was “it does not have the resources to pay the claims processing costs”.
In its October 2nd order, from which I’ve quoted from above, the court noted Visalus
cites no authority establishing that inability to pay a judgment is a proper basis for denying entry of a judgment.
Further, ViSalus does not establish that a judgment would not assist in resolving this litigation.
As Wakefield argues, a limited judgment would, at the very least, allow Wakefield to begin the collection process and discover ViSalus’s available assets.
Consequently, the court ordered Visalus to pay the requested $638,125 invoice amount.
Around the time of the $925 million robocall fraud judgment, Visalus was sold off to LaCore Enterprises. Today Visalus goes by Vi.
Under LaCore Enterprises ownership, Vi has been reduced to a Shopify website selling various Visalus products.
Interesting that they could not pay the judgement, after having sold shakes on Amazon forever, then on Vi.com for the past few years, and now on Shoply.
If Pruvit bought them (or merged as the Vi Founders claim) – could they be held liable for any part of that?
I did wonder if LaCore Enterprises would be liable having bought the company. Honestly I have no idea how that works.
LaCore Enterprises definately has $600K lying around, unless things over there are non-publicly dire.