SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Dish Network agreed to pay the U.S. government and four states, including Illinois, $210 million to settle a 2009 lawsuit alleging it engaged in millions of telemarketing violations.
District Judge Sue E. Myerscough of the Central District of Illinois in Springfield entered an order Dec. 4 enforcing the settlement. The parties settled only the monetary relief portion of the case. The injunctive relief Myerscough previously awarded “remains in place and unaffected by this settlement.”
Dish Network settled its claims with the U.S. for a $126 million civil penalty. Additionally, the defendant agreed to pay $13,041,000 to Illinois, $13,986,000 to North Carolina, $17,031,000 to Ohio and $39,942,000 to California’s Public Rights Law Enforcement Special Fund used to support the investigation and prosecution of matters within the authority of the Department of Justice’s Public Rights Division.
Prior to the settlement, Myerscough awarded the plaintiffs a total of $280 million after finding that Dish Network was liable for millions of telemarketing call violations. She also imposed injunctive relief through compliance and reporting measures.
Specifically, Myerscough previously awarded $168,000,000 to the U.S., $53,256,000 to California, $17,388,000 to Illinois, $18,648,000 to North Carolina and $22,708,000 to Ohio.
She entered the ruling in June 2017 after a six-week bench trial was held in February 2016.
Dish Network appealed the judgment. The Seventh Circuit Appellate Court vacated the $280 million award and remanded the case back to the district court for further proceedings. The appellate court concluded that the award should “start from harm rather than wealth.”
The complaint was filed in March 2009 alleging Dish Network violated the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule.
The defendant is accused of making telemarketing calls to numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry, abandoning calls, using automated voice telemarketing and assisting others in the violations.
The do not call registry is a list of “consumers who do not wish to receive certain types of telemarketing calls. Consumers can register their telephone numbers on the Registry without charge, ” according to the complaint.
Telemarketers are prohibited from calling a number on the Registry and from abandoning an outbound call. Telemarketers are also prohibited from using pre-recorded messages, where sales pitches to live consumers begin with or are made entirely by those automated messages.
According to the complaint, consumers have filed complaints to the Federal Trade Commission or their respective Attorneys General, alleging Dish Network violated the telemarketing laws.
“Consumers in the United States have suffered and will suffer injury as a result of Defendant’s violations of the TSR, the TCPA, California law, Illinois law, Ohio law, and North Carolina law,” the suit states. “Absent injunctive relief by this Court, Defendant is likely to continue to injure consumers and harm the public interest.”
U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois case number 3:09-cv-3073