1-800-Flowers Sued for Revealing Customer's Affair to Spouse

1-800-Flowers.com is facing a suit by a customer who alleges that the company revealed his affair to his wife. Leroy Greer, a Houston, Texas resident, filed suit against 1-800-Flowers.com and affiliated companies in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston division, on August 6, 2007, claiming that the company informed his wife that the roses he ordered were for another woman. Mr. Greer alleges that the company's failure to keep his transaction private violated the company's own privacy policy and Texas law.

According to the complaint, Mr. Greer placed a telephone order with 1-800-Flowers for a dozen long-stemmed red roses for his girlfriend. During the course of the call, he asked about keeping the transaction private and requested that no evidence of the call be sent to him at either his home or business addresses. The customer service representative with whom Mr. Greer placed the order referred him to the company's Privacy Policy posted on its website, which stated that 1-800-Flowers will not give any third party personal information without the customer's consent. On that basis, Mr. Greer proceeded with the transaction.

Months after he placed the order, 1-800-Flowers sent a card to his home address thanking him for his purchase and offering him a fifteen percent discount on his next purchase. Mr. Greer's wife received and opened the card and called 1-800-Flowers to determine the details of the transaction and request proof of purchase. 1-800-Flowers duly faxed Mr. Greer's wife a copy of the receipt (which identified the "occasion" for the purchase as "Love and Romance") with her husband's information, his girlfriend's identifying information and a copy of the card message Mr. Greer had sent with the flowers: "Just wanted to say that I love you and you mean the world to me!"

In the complaint, Mr. Greer asserts that 1-800-Flowers breached its service contract with him and violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, Tex. Bus. Com. Code § 17.50. He claims that 1-800-Flowers misrepresented the privacy protections with which it would provide him, in violation of Texas law.

Mr. Greer does not allege that 1-800-Flowers's actions caused his wife to file for divorce. Rather, Mr. Greer maintains that 1-800-Flowers's actions led his wife to seek an unequal division of the marital property in the divorce action based on the proof of Mr. Greer's infidelity. According to Mr. Greer, 1-800-Flowers gave Mr. Greer's wife a strategic advantage in the divorce case by providing her with proof that Mr. Greer committed adultery. Under Texas law, a court may grant divorce in favor of one spouse if the other spouse has committed adultery.

The complaint requests that the court award Mr. Greer actual damages, damages for economic injury, mental anguish, and treble damages based on 1-800-Flowers's alleged knowing misrepresentation of its privacy policy. The complaint does not specify an amount of damages, although the demand letter, attached to the complaint, that Mr. Greer's counsel sent to 1-800-Flowers prior to filing the lawsuit requested $1,000,000 in actual damages, mental anguish and attorney's fees.

Source

Leroy Greer v. 1-800-Flowers.Com Inc., 8/6/2007, Case No. H-07-2543 (Houston).