Dish, States Call Each Other 'Disingenuous' in Row Over Robocall Suit Post-Trial Discovery

Dish Network and the states suing it over robocall allegations are dueling over post-trial discovery issues and related costs, with each side calling the other "disingenuous." U.S. District Judge Sue Myerscough of Springfield, Illinois, last week ordered California, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio -- which alongside the FTC are suing Dish for alleged violations of the telemarketing sales rule (see 0903260144) -- to pay costs and fees for post-trial discovery about residential addresses associated with telephone numbers. A states' motion last week asked the court to sanction Dish for allegedly hiding, until the last week of trial, data on the states of residence for recipients of telemarketing calls, and order Dish to pay the states' costs and fees for area code analyses they wouldn't have undertaken "if Dish had produced the state address information" as required by discovery orders. That trial testimony "revealed that for years and even during the trial, Dish had been disingenuous [by] representing that the state of residence for the recipients of its telemarketing calls is unknowable," the states said. They also asked that the court reconsider its order granting costs and fees to Dish for any further discovery on one of the area code analyses. In an opposition filed Monday, Dish said, "It is the State Plaintiffs whose positions here are disingenuous" when they don't acknowledge that Dish retailers made close to 90 percent of the calls in question and the company has no information about the addresses. The motion for sanctions should be denied given that the discovery requests given to Dish "are so broad and general as to cover virtually any information in [its] databases," Dish said. The company also said the court should deny the states' motion to reconsider the decision ordering them to pay Dish's costs and attorney fees for the area code analyses, because the states' arguments are the same the court previously shot down.