Justia Communications Law Opinion Summaries

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals denying Appellant's petition for a writ of mandamus against the Hamilton County clerk of courts (Appellee) to compel the production of public records and awarded him $700 in statutory damages, holding that Appellant failed to prevail on his claims.Appellant, an inmate, sent public records requests to the clerk, who informed Appellant that his requests were subject to approval from the judge who sentenced him or their successor according to Ohio Rev. Code 149.43(B)(8). Appellant filed a petition for a writ of mandamus challenging the clerk's response. The petition was dismissed, but the Supreme Court reversed. On remand, Appellant filed a motion for default judgment. The court of appeals denied both Appellant's motion for default judgment and his petition for a writ of mandamus. The Supreme Court affirmed and awarded statutory damages, holding that Appellant had prevailed on his claims to the extent the law allowed. View "State ex rel. Ware v. Parikh" on Justia Law

Elanco Animal Health sent Ambassador Animal Hospital two unsolicited faxes inviting Ambassador’s veterinarians and its owner to RSVP for two free dinner programs: one titled “Canine and Feline Disease Prevention Hot Topics” and the other “Rethinking Management of Osteoarthritis.” The faxes indicated that both programs had been approved for continuing education credits and provided the names of the programs’ presenters. The corners of each invitation included the trademarked “Elanco” logo, and the bottom of each fax contained a notice encouraging recipients to consult their state or federal regulations or ethics laws about restrictions on accepting industry-provided educational and food items.Ambassador filed suit, alleging violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. 227 (TCPA), and arguing that the faxes were unsolicited advertisements because the free dinner programs were used to market or sell Elanco’s animal health goods and services. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the complaint. The text of the TCPA creates an objective standard narrowly focused on the content of the faxed document. The faxes do not indicate—directly or indirectly—to a reasonable recipient that Elanco was promoting or selling some good, service, or property as required by the TCPA. The court rejected a “pretext” argument. View "Ambassador Animal Hospital, Ltd. v. Elanco Animal Health Inc." on Justia Law

This case was the second round of appeals arising from Dalia Rojas’s lawsuit against HSBC Card Services, Inc. and HSBC Technology & Services (USA) Inc. (together, HSBC) for violations of the California Invasion of Privacy Act . Rojas received hundreds of personal calls from her daughter Alejandra, an employee at an HSBC call center, which were recorded by HSBC’s full-time recording system. Rojas alleged HSBC intentionally recorded confidential calls without her consent. She also alleged HSBC intentionally recorded calls to her cellular and cordless phones without her consent. The trial court granted summary judgment to HSBC, and Rojas appealed. The Court of Appeal reversed, concluding HSBC had not met its initial burden to show there was no triable issue of material fact on intent. On remand, HSBC made a Code of Civil Procedure section 998 offer, which Rojas did not accept. The case proceeded to a bench trial, where HSBC relied, in part, on workplace policies that purportedly barred call center agents from making personal calls at their desks to show it did not intend to record the calls. The trial court ultimately entered judgment for HSBC. Pertinent here, the court found Rojas did not prove HSBC’s intent to record. The court also found Rojas impliedly consented to being recorded, and did not prove lack of consent. Rojas appealed that judgment, contending the trial court made several errors in determining she did not prove her Privacy Act claims and that the evidence did not support its findings. The Court of Appeal concluded the trial court applied correct legal standards in assessing lack of consent and substantial evidence supports its finding that Rojas impliedly consented to being recorded. Although the Court determined the record did not support the court’s finding that HSBC did not intend to record the calls between Rojas and her daughter, that determination did not require reversal. "What it underscores, however, is that a business’s full-time recording of calls without adequate notice creates conditions ripe for potential liability under the Privacy Act, and workplace policies prohibiting personal calls may not mitigate that risk." View "Rojas v. HSBC Card Services Inc." on Justia Law

Before Dante (age 2) died, his aunt, Mercado, filed a report with the Office of Children and Youth Services, which investigated Dante’s welfare. Bowie, who was dating Dante’s mother, was charged with murdering him. In criminal discovery, Bowie got documents from the investigation that were stored in a statewide database. He gave them to Mercado, who believed he was innocent. Mercado, wanting to blame Youth Services for failing to protect her nephew, started a Facebook group, “Justice for Dante.” and posted some of the documents. Bowie was acquitted. In the meantime, York County District Attorney Sunday charged Mercado with violating Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services Law. The Law makes it a crime to willfully release or permit the release of any information contained in the Statewide child abuse database to persons or agencies not permitted to receive that information. The DA later dismissed the charge,Schrader, Dante’s grandmother, wants to publish documents generated during Youth Services’ investigation to further publicize Youth Services’ failures. She fears that she will be prosecuted if she does so. Invoking the First Amendment, she claimed that the Law is unconstitutional both on its face and as applied to her. The district court agreed with the as-applied challenge and preliminarily enjoined the prosecution of Schrader for sharing child-abuse documents concerning Dante. The Third Circuit vacated with instructions to narrow the injunction to eliminate a reference to "other documents" that may come into Schrader's possession. Under the content-focused test, the Law is likely unconstitutional as applied here. View "Schrader v. District Attorney York County" on Justia Law

In White Deer Township, a four-mile gap in Verizon’s wireless coverage overlays Interstate 80; Verizon customers are likely to experience “dropped calls,” “ineffective call attempts,” and “garbled audio.” The area is within Bald Eagle State Forest. A 2000 Pennsylvania moratorium prohibits the construction of cell towers on state forest land, so Verizon’s options were limited. After considering several sites and antenna configurations, Verizon decided to construct a 195-foot monopole topped with a four-foot antenna on privately owned land, comprising 1.9 acres and containing a cabin, shed, pavilion, and privy. Verizon leased 0.0597 acres, in the northeast corner of the property for the tower.The Township then permitted cell towers that complied with a minimum permissible lot size of one acre; cell towers had to be set back “from lot lines and structures a distance equal to the height of the facility, including towers and antennas, plus 10% of such height.” The Zoning Board denied Verizon’s variance applications, finding that Verizon’s alleged hardship was insufficient because it was “not a hardship connected to the capacity for the property to be used reasonably, but rather, the hardship [was connected to Verizon’s] capacity to use the property as desired.” The Third Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Verizon. The denial had “the effect of prohibiting the provision of personal wireless services,” in violation of the Telecommunications Act, 47 U.S.C. 332(c)(7)(B)(i)(II). View "Cellco Partnership v. White Deer Township Zoning Hearing Board" on Justia Law

In this appeal stemming from a challenge to Maryland's Digital Advertising Gross Revenues Tax Act the Court of Appeals vacated the orders of the circuit court granting a declaratory judgment that a digital advertising tax was unconstitutional and illegal under federal law the Court of Appeals held that the circuit court lacked jurisdiction over the action.At issue was Maryland's Digital Advertising Gross Revenues Tax Act, codified at Title 7.5 of the Tax-General Article, which imposed a tax on annual gross revenues of certain high revenue businesses derived from state digital advertising services. Plaintiffs, various subsidiaries of Comcast Corporation and Verizon Communications, Inc., filed this action seeking a declaratory judgment that the tax was unconstitutional and illegal. The circuit court granted judgment for Plaintiffs. The Court of Appeals vacated the orders below, holding (1) Plaintiffs failed to exhaust mandatory administrative and judicial review remedies provided in the Tax-General Article for the resolution of tax disputes; and (2) absent exhaustion of the available statutory administrative remedies, the circuit court lacked jurisdiction over the challenge. View "Comptroller v. Comcast" on Justia Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the judgment of the superior court entered upon a jury verdict in favor of Mainely Media, LLC on the tort claims brought by Norman Gaudette, a former Biddeford police officer, and his wife Joanne, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting certain testimony.The Gaudettes brought this action claiming defamation, false light, and loss of consortium alleging that Mainely Media had published incorrect information indicating that Norman had sexually abused minors years earlier while he was a police officer. The trial court entered judgment in favor of Mainely Media. On appeal, the Gaudettes argued that the trial court abused its discretion by refusing to strike a detective's testimony that an earlier investigation of Norman did not exonerate him. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding that the superior court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted the detective's testimony. View "Gaudette v. Mainely Media, LLC" on Justia Law

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) provides subsidies to encourage telecommunication companies to expand high-speed broadband internet services in rural areas where customer revenues would otherwise be insufficient to justify the cost of doing business. Venture Communications Cooperative (“Venture”) provides broadband services to rural South Dakota customers. James Valley Cooperative Telephone Company and its wholly owned subsidiary, Northern Valley Communications (collectively, “Northern Valley”), is a competing provider. Venture filed this lawsuit against Northern Valley. The primary claim is that Northern Valley violated 47 U.S.C. Section 220(e) by filing a Form 477 that “intentionally, deliberately, fraudulently, and maliciously misrepresented” information “for the sole unlawful purpose of harming [Venture]” by depriving Venture of FCC subsidies in census blocks where Northern Valley was deemed to be an unsubsidized competitor. The district court granted Northern Valley summary judgment, concluding “there is no evidence that Northern Valley willfully overreported its broadband capabilities.”   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that Venture’s claim of intent to injure is belied by Northern Valley helping Venture by filing a letter with the FCC clarifying that Northern Valley did not offer voice service in the Overlap Area. The court likewise affirmed the dismissal of Venture’s tortious interference and civil conspiracy claims under South Dakota law. The court agreed with the district court that Venture proffered no evidence of an “intentional and unjustified act of interference” because Northern Valley complied with all FCC reporting requirements. As Northern Valley complied with the Telecommunications Act in filing Form 477 at issue, there is no plausible underlying tort alleged. Summary judgment is warranted on this claim. View "Venture Comm. Co-Op, Inc. v. James Valley Co-Op Telephone Co." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals granting Appellant's petition for a writ of mandamus but denying his requests for statutory damages and court costs, holding that there was no error.Appellant, an inmate, sent a public-records request to Appellee, an employee of a private company that contracts with the state of Ohio to house state prisoners. Dissatisfied with the ultimate response, Appellant filed the current action asking for a writ of mandamus ordering Appellee to produce the records requested. The court of appeals granted the writ to a limited extent and denied Appellant's request for statutory damages and court costs. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the court of appeals did not err in denying Appellant's request for statutory damages and court costs. View "State ex rel. Atakpu v. Shuler" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a lawsuit under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act alleging that Defendants sent text messages to a cell phone number that she had placed on the National Do-Not-Call Registry and provided to her thirteen-year-old son. The district court concluded that Plaintiff lacked Article III standing because she failed to allege that she was the “actual user” of the phone or the “actual recipient” of the text messages.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal. The panel held that the owner and subscriber of a phone with a number listed on the Do-Not-Call Registry has suffered an injury in fact sufficient to confer Article III standing when unsolicited telemarketing calls or texts are sent to the number in alleged violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The panel held that the owner and subscriber of the phone suffers a concrete, de facto injury when their right to be free from such communications is violated, even if the communications are intended for or solicited by another individual and even if someone else is using the phone at the time the messages are transmitted. View "KRISTEN HALL V. SMOSH DOT COM, INC., ET AL" on Justia Law