A judge from the Western District of Washington Seattle Court approved a class action suit against Papa John's on Friday. The plaintiffs, three people from Washington State, are standing in for thousands of customers claiming that Papa John's and a marketing firm called OnTime4U worked together to send spam texts to customers who hadn't given their consent to be texted with marketing information, violating the US Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991.

The Seattle law firm Heyrich Kalish McGuigan is representing the plaintiffs. It claims Papa John's customers received 500,000 unwanted text messages nationally, and the firm also claims this could cost Papa John's $500 per text message (a bill that would tally up to $250 million). While such a large payout is highly unlikely, a class-action payout may be in the future for the pizza chain.

The order granting a motion for class action says Papa John's LLC worked with OnTime4U and encouraged their individual franchisees to cooperate with the company. OnTime4U then solicited the franchisees for lists of their customers' phone numbers (which most pizza-delivery restaurants keep for speedy phone-orders). OnTime4U then removed the land-line numbers, and texted promotional messages to the rest.

"OnTime4U apparently told Papa John‘s franchisees that it was legal to send texts without express customer consent because there was an existing business relationship between the customers and the Papa John‘s restaurants," the order read. The plaintiffs say that a single Seattle franchisee provided OnTime4U with 68,000 phone numbers and sent numerous texts to some numbers.

The plaintiffs are arguing that Papa John's, OnTime4U, and the individual Papa John's franchisees (specifically one in Rain City, Washington) are all liable for violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Papa John's says it had no part in sending texts to its customers, but the judge overseeing the case says that is at least partially contradicted by documents.

"Whether Papa John‘s had any involvement in franchisee-level decisions to contract with OnTime4U, and if so, the extent of that involvement is a central and disputed issue in the case," the judge's order reads. "Contrary to Papa John‘s position that it played no role in those decisions, Papa John‘s has produced documents that indicate that it did play some role in the franchisee-level decisions to hire OnTime4U."