Re: Sensible suggestion
"Currently, the law calls for $500/call civil damages (with $1500 for calls after a request to cease). Court costs are going to be a lot more than that, so it's a losing proposition for the call-receiver."
Incorrect.
The TCPA provides $500 _statutory_(*) per call damages, tripled for wilful violation(**) - filable in small claims court local to the plaintiff - against BOTH the calling company and the company which hired them - with all filing, administration and other charges acruing to the respondent.
Attorney fees are not provided for as attorneys are _specifically excluded_ from small claims courts.
This has led to a mountain of false information being circulated by scam/spam companies about how it's impossible to file, etc etc, legal fees, etc etc.
The other problem has been that small claims judges across the USA have refused to hear cases or enforce the _statutory_ damages against local businesses or directed that this case must be heard by a higher court.
_Every single time_ this has been kicked to higher courts it has come back down to the lower courts with the judge in question being censured and told to both hear the case and find for the plaintiff (the unspoken part being that a judge who doesn't comply has a limited tenure left as a judge or as a lawyer)
There's enough precedent in all 50 US states now that if a small claims judge even thinks of taking this route (s)he is courting a permanent loss of employment.
There's only one grey area left in TCPA law - that of vicarious liability of franchisors for the actions of franchisees (ie, going after Dominos USA for the phone spamming of the local franchise holder is unlikely to fly unless it's shown the business model was approved by the franchising company, ditto going after an alarm company for the spamming actions of retailers selling the product, unless it can be shown the activity was encouraged - this is where "affiliate" spamming gets traction)
(*) Statutory meaning that judges have _zero_ discretion in awarding the damages.
(**) Wilful is defined, but boils down to multiple calls per day, forged (or no) caller-ID, calling after being told not to or breaching do not call lists(***), robo(prerecorded) calls and calling hospital lines or emergncy services lines.
(***) Several states have their own fines for breaching DNC lists - Indiana is about $50k/call
The idea was and is to take down junk callers/faxers with the death of a million papercuts - and if it put the company out of business, that was intentional - this is the part that small claims judges refused to allow - and got slapped down hard on - remember that lower level US judges are elected, not appointed and they were afraid of bad publicity - although that cuts both ways and one judge who refused to apply the fines was voted out on a landslide once the media got hold of it and the subsequent appeal court spanking delivered.
As for enforcement: once you have your judgement, if they don't cough up you apply to the court for bailiffs to enforce - which gets added to the respondent's bill, not the plaintiff's. There are a couple of hoops to jump through for interstate enforcement but they're a basic formality.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
