Here are Communications Litigation Today's top stories from last week, in case you missed them. Each can be found by searching on its title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The FCC is asking the 11th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court to deny the Insurance Marketing Coalition’s April 3 motion to stay portions of its Dec. 18 order implementing rules under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to target and eliminate illegal robotexts, pending the disposition of the coalition’s appeal to vacate the order (see 2312220059). The commission filed its opposition Monday (docket 24-10277).
Robocalls are the top consumer complaint in the U.S., and the "conduct" of DirecTV and its debt collector, Credence Resource Management, “is a good reason why,” alleged plaintiff Joseph Brennan’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Saturday (docket 2:24-cv-03019) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. A 2008 FCC order held that a company on whose behalf a phone call is made bears the responsibility for any TCPA violations, said the complaint. Credence collects debts for DirecTV and routinely violates the TCPA by using an artificial or prerecorded voice to place nonemergency calls to cellphone numbers without prior express consent, it said. The 2008 order establishes that DirecTV is “directly liable” for the calls that Credence made on its behalf, it said. DirecTV could have restricted Credence from using prerecorded messages to make the calls, but it didn’t, said the complaint. DirecTV knew that Credence was calling using prerecorded messages, it said. Brennan’s counsel even sent DirecTV a letter protesting its collection calling practices, but Credence continued calling the plaintiff using a prerecorded message even after receiving the letter, it said. Brennan estimates receiving at least five prerecorded calls from Credence, on DirecTV’s behalf, between Feb. 6 and March 1, said the complaint. Upon information and “good faith belief,” the plaintiff said the calls and prerecorded voice messages to his cellphone were intended for a person named Whitley, to collect a $509 DirecTV debt. Brennan doesn’t know anyone named Whitley, and he has never had, a DirecTV account, it said. The plaintiff incurred actual harm as a result of the calls, “in that he suffered an invasion of privacy, an intrusion into his life, and a private nuisance,” it said.
Communications Litigation Today is tracking the below lawsuits involving appeals of FCC actions. Cases marked with an * were terminated since the last update. Cases in bold are new since the last update.
The FCC's Oct. 25 declaratory ruling authorizing E-rate funding for Wi-Fi on school buses (see 2312200040) is “contrary to law” because it “improperly expands” the schools and libraries universal service program under Section 254 of the Communications Act, said the Competitive Enterprise Institute in an amicus brief April 9 (docket 23-60641) at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The net neutrality draft order on the FCC's April 25 open meeting agenda (see 2404030043) will face much the same legal arguments as the 2015 net neutrality order did, with many of the same parties involved, we're told by legal experts and net neutrality watchers.
Wireless internet service provider Bloosurf, valued at $30 million in 2021, has lost "half its customers" and "significant" revenue and cash flow due to T-Mobile's interference, alleged Bloosurf’s complaint Wednesday (docket 8:24-cv-01047) in U.S. District Court for Maryland in Greenbelt in which it seeks $116 million in damages.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should grant T-Mobile’s petition for interlocutory review of the district court’s denial of its motion to dismiss the antitrust claims of seven AT&T and Verizon customers who allege their own wireless rates soared as a result of T-Mobile’s 2020 Sprint buy (see 2404090059), said the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in an amicus brief Wednesday (docket 24-8013).
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the unopposed motion of the American Television Alliance of low-power stations to intervene as of right in defense of the FCC’s Dec. 26 quadrennial review order against the four consolidated petitions challenging the order for allegedly violating Section 202(h) of the Telecommunications Act (see 2404080002), said a signed clerk’s order Wednesday. The consolidated petitions pending in the 8th Circuit are from Zimmer Radio (docket 24-1380), Beasley Media Group (docket 24-1480), NAB (docket 24-1493) and Nexstar Media Group (docket 24-1516).
Plaintiff Subspace Omega, a network optimization service provider that closed in 2022, fails to allege exclusionary conduct, said Amazon’s motion Monday (docket 2:23-cv-01772) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle to dismiss Subspace’s antitrust suit.