No Lanham Act causation in another timeshare exit case

Westgate Resorts, Ltd. v. Reed Hein & Assoc., LLC, 2020 WL 674108, No: 6:18-cv-1088-Orl-31DCI (M.D. Fla. Feb. 11, 2020)

Yay, another time share exit opinion. As relevant here, the court rejected the timeshare company’s Lanham Act claim because the allegedly false advertising didn’t proximately cause the asserted harm (people stopping paying their timeshare obligations). The identified false advertising statements included that timeshare owners can exit their contracts for any reason; that defendant TET has a 100 percent success rate; and that TET provides a money back guarantee. But none of the identified statements “direct (or can reasonably be construed to direct) timeshare owners to stop making payments.” Westgate didn’t argue that the ads harmed its reputation, and it didn’t show proximate cause for the harm it did allege.