Plaintiff Sues to Stop Tribune Telemarketing Calls to His Dead Mother

Tribune Publishing inundated consumer Ronald French with telemarketing calls to his residential phone in an attempt to get his deceased mother to renew her terminated subscription to its newspapers, and the calls persisted even after he told Tribune she had died and to stop calling, alleged his Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-07158) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. A Tribune agent told French his mother's name would be added to an internal do-not-call list, but the calls kept coming, it said. The FCC has explained that its rules generally establish that the telemarketing party on whose behalf a solicitation is made bears ultimate responsibility for any TCPA violations, said his complaint. The FCC has repeatedly acknowledged the existence of vicarious liability under the TCPA, it said.