United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 21-2653 ANGEL BAKOV, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CONSOLIDATED WORLD TRAVEL, INC., Defendant-Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 15 C 2980 — Harry D. Leinenweber, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED FEBRUARY 10, 2022 — DECIDED MAY 19, 2023 ____________________

Before WOOD, KIRSCH, and JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judges. * WOOD, Circuit Judge. This case presents a narrow but im- portant question about the administration of class actions:

* The case was originally argued before Judges Manion, Kanne, and Jackson-Akiwumi. After Judge Kanne’s death and Judge Manion’s retire- ment, it was reassigned to this panel. 2 No. 21-2653 what authority do district courts have to impose the cost of class notice on a defendant that already has been found liable to the class? The court in the case before us ruled that defend- ant Consolidated World Travel, Inc. (CWT) had to bear those costs. We explain below how this came about. We conclude that in the unusual circumstances of this case, the district court had the authority to assign these costs to CWT and that it did not abuse its discretion in doing so. We thus affirm its order. I The class asserts in this action that CWT violated the Tele- phone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by calling class mem- bers using prerecorded voice messages, a practice the law ex- pressly prohibits. See 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(B). Operating un- der a fictitious name, CWT employed a company called Vir- tual Voice Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (VVT), which is based in In- dia, to call millions of people across the United States and of- fer them “a free cruise simply to show you a great time.” On these calls, agents would communicate by using a sound- board, which enabled them to choose among 47 prerecorded prompts. For every customer who agreed to have their call transferred from VVT to CWT and then stayed on the line for at least 60 seconds, CWT paid VVT a $3.50 commission. Relying on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), Plain- tiffs initially moved to certify a nationwide class of people who had received VVT’s calls. On March 21, 2019, the district court granted in part and denied in part the motion. It certi- fied a class of Illinois residents, but to the extent the motion asked for a nationwide class, the court denied it. The judge took this step based on his belief that the Supreme Court’s de- cision in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, No. 21-2653 3 582 U.S. 255 (2017), required a finding of no personal jurisdic- tion over CWT for purposes of the claims of the proposed nonresident class members. With that decision in hand, Plain- tiffs used two third-party service providers to identify and send notice to the 28,239 Illinois class members. Plaintiffs cov- ered that cost. About six months later, the parties submitted cross-mo- tions for summary judgment. The district court granted the class’s motion on the TCPA claim. The court also determined that CWT’s TCPA violations were committed willfully or knowingly. That finding permitted an award of anything from actual to treble damages. See 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(3)(C). Shortly after the liability determination, we issued our opinion in Mussat v. IQVIA, Inc., holding that “the principles announced in Bristol-Myers do not apply to the case of a na- tionwide class action filed in federal court under a federal statute.” 953 F.3d 441, 443 (7th Cir. 2020).