Plaintiffs v Simon & Schuster
Federal Court of Appeals Reinstates $90M Text Spam Class Action Against Simon & Schuster
In an unprecedented ruling, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit announced that publishing giant Simon & Schuster could be on the hook for as much as $90 million for sending unwanted text messages to tens of thousands of people. The unanimous decision held that text messages were under the purview of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which makes it unlawful to make automated calls to cellular telephones.
The court based its ruling on a prior interpretation by the Federal Communications Commission: The FCC has explicitly stated that the TCPAs prohibition...encompasses both voice calls and text calls to wireless numbers including, for example, short message service (SMS) calls, the opinion explained, [W]e find that the FCCs interpretation of the TCPA is reasonable, and therefore afford it deference to hold that a text message is a call within the TCPA.
The suit is brought on behalf of a putative class of 60,000 people, each of whom could receive a minimum of $500 and as much as $1,500 each if it is determined that the violation was intentional.
Satterfield is represented by John G. Jacobs of The Jacobs Law Firm, who argued the appeal, as well as his partner Bryan Kolton and Jay Edelson and Myles McGuire of KamberEdelson, LLC.
For more information please contact:
John G. Jacobs
The Jacobs Law Firm
Philadelphia:
2005 Market Street, Suite 1120
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Tel: 215.569.9701
Fax: 215.569.9788
New Jersey:
101 Laurel Road, Suite 103
Voorhes, NJ 08043
Tel: 856.547.4400
Fax: 856.547.5499
and/or
Bryan Kolton and Jay Edelson Myles McGuire
KamberEdelson, LLC
d: 312.589.6375
f: 312.589.6378
350 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 1300
Chicago, IL 60654
jedelson@kamberedelson.com
