Indiana Ruling Exposes Email Marketers to $500-Per-Email Class Actions
A federal court has held that Indiana's anti-spam statute reaches "misleading" email subject lines and is not preempted by federal law, exposing senders to $500 in statutory damages per email.
On September 15, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana allowed a putative class action under the Indiana Deceptive Commercial Electronic Mail Act ("IDCEMA") to proceed in Johnson v. Ulta Salon, Cosmetics & Fragrance, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-02521. IDCEMA bars emails with "false or misleading information in the subject line" from being sent to known Indiana residents and awards $500 in statutory damages per email, even absent actual injury.
The plaintiffs claimed that subject lines such as "SO MANY FREE GIFTS INSIDE" and "Don't miss 10% off your purchase" were misleading even when the emails' bodies disclosed minimum purchases and exclusions.
The district court's order establishes three key principles:
- Whole-message analysis. Because the email bodies disclosed the conditions, no subject line was "false." That claim was therefore dismissed.
- "Misleading" is a broader, independent basis for liability. Claims that unqualified "free gift" and "discount" subject lines enticed recipients to open emails survived. Whether those subject lines actually misled remains "a question for another day."
- No CAN-SPAM preemption. The federal CAN-SPAM Act preserves state laws prohibiting "falsity or deception." Departing from the Fourth and Ninth Circuits, which limited that savings clause to tort-like claims, the court held that "misleading" essentially means "deceptive." Consequently, IDCEMA claims survive.
Evolving Legal Landscape
Washington state offers a cautionary parallel. After Brown v. Old Navy, LLC (Wash. 2025) interpreted that state's similar statute to reach any false or misleading subject line, nearly 200 class actions followed. The legislature responded with HB 2274, effective June 11, 2026, which requires sender knowledge and cuts statutory damages to $100.
IDCEMA has neither limitation: It does not expressly require that the sender know a subject line is misleading, and damages remain at $500 per email, making Indiana an attractive new hotbed for consumer class action claims.
Businesses should review promotional emails to ensure that the subject line can stand alone as neither false nor misleading, as the plaintiffs' bar will undoubtedly focus on this decision to aggressively pursue similar cases.
