Dish, TCPA Plaintiffs at Odds Over Verifying Class Members

Dish Network and plaintiffs in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class-action lawsuit disagree over defining the ostensible class members eligible for part of a jury award. It's up to the court to decide who should receive part of the $20.4 million class judgment against Dish Network, an issue in which Dish has no legal interest, plaintiff Thomas Krakauer said in a response (in Pacer) in opposition to a Dish motion filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Greensboro, North Carolina. It said Dish's proposal -- letting it challenge each claim post trial (see 1704270008) -- would nullify the jury's finding of liability and assessment of statutory damages to the class. The plaintiff said the very point of class action is to avoid the need to present individual proof and its proposed tests for proof of class members is "overwhelmingly burdensome and patently unreasonable." Dish's motion (in Pacer) in opposition to the plaintiff's suggested post-trial procedures said the court before trial said the jury wouldn't decide whether ostensible class members were the phone number subscribers or the people who answer the calls that were the TCPA violations, and plaintiffs are arguing the jury decided all the elements of the class member claims in stealth, allowing immediate entry of a final judgment in favor of 18,066 phone numbers. The jury didn't make an aggregate damages determination, Dish said, adding each ostensible class member still must establish an element of the claim.