Alvarez v. Sunshine Life & Health Advisors LLC

A court authorized the Notice because you have a right to know about a proposed Settlement of a class action lawsuit known as Alvarez v. Sunshine Life & Health Advisors LLC, in the Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County, and about all of your options before the Court decides whether to give Final Approval to the Settlement. This Notice explains the lawsuit, the Settlement, and your legal rights.

A Judge of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit In And For Miami-Dade County, Florida is overseeing this case. The person who sued, Luis Alvarez, is called the “Plaintiff.” Sunshine Life & Health Advisors LLC is called the “Defendant” or “Sunshine Life & Health Advisors.”  

The lawsuit alleges that Sunshine Life & Health Advisors sent text messages to Plaintiff’s wireless telephone number without prior express written consent in violation of the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act, Fla. Stat. § 501.059, and seeks actual and statutory damages under the FTSA on behalf of the named Plaintiff and a class of all individuals in the United States.

Sunshine Life & Health Advisors denies each and every allegation of wrongdoing, liability, and damages that were or could have been asserted in the litigation and that the claims in the litigation would be appropriate for class treatment if the litigation were to proceed through trial.

The Plaintiff’s Complaint, Settlement Agreement, and other case-related documents are posted on the Settlement Website, www.SunshineLifeFTSASettlement.com. The Settlement resolves the lawsuit. The Court has not decided who is right.

The Florida Telephone Solicitation Act (commonly referred to as the “FTSA”) is a Florida law that restricts telephone solicitations and the use of automated telephone equipment without prior express consent.

In a class action, one person called the “Class Representative” (in this case, Plaintiff) sue on behalf of themselves and other people with similar claims.

All of the people who have claims similar to the Plaintiff’s are Settlement Class Members, except for those who exclude themselves from the class, among others.

 The Court has not found in favor of either Plaintiff or Sunshine Life & Health Advisors. Instead, both sides have agreed to a settlement. By agreeing to the Settlement, the parties avoid the costs and uncertainty of a trial, and if the Settlement is approved by the Court, Settlement Class Claimants will receive the benefits described in the Notice. Sunshine Life & Health Advisors denies all legal claims in this case. Plaintiff and his lawyers think the proposed Settlement is best for everyone who is affected.

The Settlement includes all persons who received a text message on their cell phone from Sunshine Life & Health Advisors. Specifically, the Settlement Class is defined as:

All persons who (1) were sent a text message (2) by or on behalf of Defendant (3) between July 1, 2021 and the date of final approval (4) regarding Defendant’s goods and/or services.

Persons meeting this definition are referred to collectively as the “Settlement Class” and, individually, as “Settlement Class Members.”

The Settlement Class excludes the following: (1) the trial judge presiding over this case; (2) Defendants, as well as any parent, subsidiary, affiliate, or control person of Defendants, and the officers, directors, agents, servants, or employees of Defendants; (3) any of the Released Parties; (4) the immediate family of any such person(s); any Settlement Class Member who has timely opted out of this proceeding; and (6) Plaintiff’s Counsel, their employees, and their immediate family.

If you are not sure whether you are in the Settlement Class or have any other questions about the Settlement, visit the Settlement Website at www.sunshinelifeFTSAsettlement.com or call the toll-free number, 1-855-558-0311. You also may send questions to the Settlement Administrator at Sunshine Life FTSA Settlement Administrator, 1650 Arch Street, Suite 2210, Philadelphia, PA 19103.

Payments in the form of a check to Settlement Class Members will be made only after the Court grants Final Approval to the Settlement and after any appeals are resolved (see “Final Approval Hearing” below). If there are appeals, resolving them can take time. Please be patient.

To fully settle and release claims of the Settlement Class Members, Sunshine Life & Health Advisors has agreed to make payments to the Settlement Class Members and pay for notice and administration costs of the Settlement, attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred by counsel for the Settlement Class, and service award for Plaintiff (the “Settlement Fund”). Each Settlement Class Member who submits a timely, valid, correct and verified Claim Form by the Claim Deadline in the manner required by this Agreement, making all the required affirmations and representations, shall be sent a Claim Settlement Check by the Administrator in the amount of $300.00. Class Claimants will be sent their Claim Settlement Payments to the address they submitted on their Claim Form within 60 days following the Effective Date.

If you qualify for a payment, you must complete and submit a valid Claim Form. You may download a Claim Form at the Settlement Website, www.sunshinelifeFTSAsettlement.com, or request a Claim Form by calling the Settlement Administrator at the toll-free number below. To be valid, a Claim Form must be completed fully and accurately and submitted timely.

You must submit a Claim Form by U.S. mail or through the Settlement Website, and it must be postmarked by NOVEMBER 19, 2022.

To exclude yourself from the Settlement, you must send a timely letter by mail to:

Sunshine Life & Health Advisors Settlement Administrator

1650 Arch Street, Suite 2210

Philadelphia, PA 19103

Your request to be excluded from the Settlement must be personally signed by you under penalty of perjury and contain a statement that indicates your desire to be “excluded from the Settlement Class” and that, absent of excluding yourself or “opting out,” you are “otherwise a member of the Settlement Class.”

Your exclusion request must be postmarked no later than OCTOBER 15, 2022. You cannot ask to be excluded on the phone, by email, or at the Settlement Website.

You may opt out of the Settlement Class only for yourself.

No. Unless you exclude yourself, you give up the right to sue Sunshine Life & Health Advisors for the claims that the Settlement resolves. You must exclude yourself from this Settlement Class in order to pursue your own lawsuit.

Unless you opt out of the Settlement, you cannot sue or be part of any other lawsuit against Sunshine Life & Health Advisors about the issues in this case, including any existing litigation, arbitration, or proceeding. Unless you exclude yourself, all of the decisions and judgments by the Court will bind you.

The Settlement Agreement is available at www.SunshineLifeFTSASettlement.com. The Settlement Agreement provides more detail regarding the Releases and describes the Released Claims with specific descriptions in necessary, accurate legal terminology, so read it carefully. You can talk to the law firms representing the Settlement Class listed in Question 15 at no charge to you, or you can, at your own expense, talk to your own lawyer if you have any questions about the Released Claims or what they mean.

No. You will not get a payment from the Settlement Fund if you exclude yourself from the Settlement

The Court has appointed the following lawyers as “Class Counsel” to represent all members of the Settlement Class.

Scott Edelsberg, Esq.
Christopher Gold, Esq.
Edelsberg Law, PA
20900 NE 30th Ave, #417
Aventura, FL 33180

Andrew J. Shamis, Esq.
Garrett O. Berg, Esq.
Shamis & Gentile, P.A.
14 NE 1st Avenue, Suite 705
Miami, FL 33132

You will not be charged for these lawyers. If you want to be represented by another lawyer, you may hire one to appear in Court for you at your own expense

Class Counsel will also request that Service Award of $5,000.00 for Plaintiff be paid from the Settlement Fund for their service as Class Representative on behalf of the whole Settlement Class.

If you are a Settlement Class Member (and do not exclude yourself from the Settlement Class), you can object to any part of the Settlement. To object, you must timely submit a letter that includes the following:

1)  A heading that includes the case name and case number— Alvarez v. Sunshine Life & Health Advisors LLC Case No. 2021-020996-CA-01;

2)   Your name, address, telephone number, the cell phone number at which you received text messages from Sunshine Life & Health Advisors and if represented by counsel, the name, bar number, address, and telephone number of your counsel;

3)    A signed statement stating, under penalty of perjury, that you received one or more text message from Sunshine Life & Health Advisors and are a member of the Settlement Class;

4)    A statement of all your objections to the Settlement including your legal and factual basis for each objection;

5)    A statement of whether you intend to appear at the Final Approval Hearing, either with or without counsel, and if with counsel, the name of your counsel who will attend;

6)  The number of times in which your counsel and/or counsel’s law firm have objected to a class action settlement within the five years preceding the date that you file the objection, the caption of each case in which counsel or the firm has made such objection, and a copy of any orders related to or ruling upon counsel’s or the firm’s prior objections that were issued by the trial and appellate courts in each listed case;

7)  A list of all persons who will be called to testify at the Final Approval Hearing in support of the objection; and

8)  Any and all agreements that relate to the objection or the process of objecting—whether written or verbal—between you or your counsel and any other person or entity.

If you wish to object, you must file your objection with the Court (using the Court’s electronic filing system or in any manner in which the Court accepts filings) and mail your objection to each of the following three (3) addresses, and your objection must be postmarked by OCTOBER 15, 2022.

Objecting is telling the Court that you do not like something about the Settlement. You can object to the Settlement only if you do not exclude yourself. Excluding yourself is telling the Court that you do not want to be part of the Settlement. If you exclude yourself, you have no basis to object to the Settlement because it no longer affects you.

The Court has scheduled a Final Approval Hearing on NOVEMBER 4, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. EST at the Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County, Florida. The hearing may be moved to a different date or time without additional notice, so it is a good idea to check www.sunshinelifeFTSAsettlement.com for updates. At this hearing, the Court will consider whether the Settlement is fair, reasonable, and adequate. The Court will also consider the requests by Class Counsel for attorneys’ fees and expenses and for Service Award to the Class Representative. If there are objections, the Court will consider them at that time. After the hearing, the Court will decide whether to approve the Settlement. It is unknown how long these decisions will take.

No. Class Counsel will answer any questions the Court may have. But, you are welcome to attend the hearing at your own expense. If you send an objection, you do not have to come to Court to talk about it. As long as you submitted your written objection on time to the proper addresses and it complies with all the other requirements set forth above, the Court will consider it. You may also pay your own lawyer to attend the hearing, but it is not necessary.

You may ask the Court for permission to speak at the Final Approval Hearing. To do so, your timely filed objection must include a statement of whether you intend to appear at the Final Approval Hearing (see Question 17 above).

You cannot speak at the hearing if you exclude yourself from the Settlement.

If you are a Settlement Class member and do nothing, meaning you do not file a timely Claim, you will not get benefits from the Settlement. Further, unless you exclude yourself, you will be bound by the judgment entered by the Court.

This Notice summarizes the proposed Settlement. You are urged to review more details in the Settlement Agreement. For a complete, definitive statement of the Settlement terms, refer to the Settlement Agreement at www.sunshinelifeFTSAsettlement.comtea. You also may write with questions to the Settlement Administrator at Sunshine Life & Health Advisors Settlement Administrator, 1650 Arch Street, Suite 2210, Philadelphia, PA 19103 or call the toll-free number, 1-855-558-0311.