Golan v. FreeEats.com, Inc., No. 17-3156 (8th Cir. 2019)
Annotate this Case
Plaintiffs filed suit against numerous parties, alleging violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The Eighth Circuit revisited its prior holding in this case because of an intervening decision from the Supreme Court. The court held that, even under Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1549 (2016), plaintiffs suffered a concrete injury when they received the two answering machine messages and thus have Article III standing.
The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to give the jury plaintiffs' preferred instruction on direct liability regarding Defendant Leininger, who hired Defendant ccAdvertising, which made the calls in violation of the TCPA. Finally, the court held that the district court did not err in reducing the award of statutory damages against ccAdvertising, because the larger award would violated the Due Process Clause.
Court Description: Grasz, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Wollman, Circuit Judge] Civil case - Telephone Consumer Protection Act. For the court's prior opinion in the matter, see Golan v. Veritas Entm't, LLC, 788 F.3d 814 (8th Cir. 2015). An intervening decision since that decision requires the court to reexamine the question of whether plaintiffs had standing to bring this action, but even considering the case, Spokeo v. Robins, 136 S.Ct. 1540 (2016), plaintiffs suffered an injury in fact and had standing; plaintiffs received two telemarketing calls without prior consent, and this is a sufficiently concrete injury to establish standing; the district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to give plaintiffs' requested instruction on the direct liability of defendant Leininger who hired defendant ccAdvertising, which made the calls in violation of the Act, as there was no evidence he actually initiated the calls; the district court did not err in reducing the award of statutory damages against ccAdvertising from $1.6 billion to $32 million as the larger award would violated the Due Process Clause.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.