True Health Chiropractic Inc v. McKesson Corporation

Background

The plaintiffs moved for summary judgment on liability under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), arguing that the challenged faxes were advertisements, that each defendant was a legally defined sender, that the faxes were sent using equipment covered by the statute, and that defendants could not establish defenses based on prior permission or an established business relationship. The plaintiffs also asked the court to decide statutory and treble damages. Defendants moved for partial summary judgment on the plaintiffs’ claim for treble damages.

Plaintiffs’ Motion

The court denied summary judgment on TCPA liability because genuine disputes of material fact remained. The court identified disputes about whether all of the challenged faxes were advertisements, who owned the products described in the faxes and therefore whether defendants were the senders, and whether all class members received the faxes through a telephone facsimile machine covered by the statute. Because those disputes prevented judgment on liability, the court did not decide the plaintiffs’ request for damages.

The court granted the plaintiffs’ motion as to defendants’ affirmative defense based on prior express invitation or permission. It held that the Medisoft product-registration form and the software license agreements did not, as a matter of law, show permission to receive faxed advertisements. The court also held that the Ninth Circuit’s prior ruling and the law-of-the-case doctrine prevented defendants from asserting new individualized consent defenses against the class members whose fax numbers appeared only in Exhibit A. The court relied in part on defendants’ earlier representations about the consent defenses applicable to those class members.

Defendants’ Motion

The court denied defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment on treble damages. The court stated that the TCPA allows treble damages, in the court’s discretion, for a willful or knowing violation. Although the plaintiffs’ claim was described as far from overwhelming, the court concluded that a reasonable factfinder would not be compelled to find that defendants had a good-faith belief that MTI had prior express consent to send the faxes. The court left that question for proof at trial.

Disposition

Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. granted in part and denied in part the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and denied defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment. The order therefore resolved the prior-permission defense in the plaintiffs’ favor but left TCPA liability and the treble-damages issue for further proceedings.