Dish, Appellees at Odds Over Jury Instructions, Standing in TCPA Verdict Appeal
Jury instructions and plaintiffs' standing are at the heart of a Dish Network appeal of a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) verdict by the U.S. District Court in Greensboro, North Carolina, according to rival briefs posted Tuesday with the 4th…
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U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The TCPA verdict needs to be overturned because the class is "fatally overbroad," with the appellee having defined it to include many improper plaintiffs such as thousands of nonsubscribers who never received phone calls, Dish said in a docket 18-1518 brief (in Pacer). The lower court also wrongly instructed the jury that two calls to the same phone number establish the statutory requirement of two calls to the same person, it said. Appellees Thomas Krakauer and others said (in Pacer) precedent shows the TCPA zone of interests includes call recipients even if they weren't the subscriber and intended recipient. The appellees also said Dish doesn't cite any case contrary to the prevailing view that TCPA violations inflict concrete injuries on recipients. Dish is appealing at the 7th Circuit a similar telemarketing verdict in litigation brought by the FTC and states (see 1706270061).