Constitutionality

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Patriotic Veterans, Inc., v. Greg Zoeller

Case No.: 16-2059

Officials: EASTERBROOK, ROVNER, and SYKES, Circuit Judges

Focus: Constitutionality

Plaintiff, a veterans’ group, contends that an anti-robocall statute, Ind. Code §24-5-14-5, violates the First Amendment to the Constitution, applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. §227, which contains a similar limit, has been sustained by two circuits. See Gomez v. Campbell-Ewald Co., 768 F.3d 871 (9th Cir. 2014), affirmed on other grounds, 136 S. Ct. 663 (2016); Van Bergen v. Minne sota, 59 F.3d 1541, 1549–56 (8th Cir. 1995); Moser v. FCC, 46 F.3d 970 (9th Cir. 1995). The same circuits have approved state laws as well. See Van Bergen (sustaining a Minnesota law in addition to §227); Bland v. Fessler, 88 F.3d 729 (9th Cir. 1996) (California law). But relying on Cahaly v. LaRosa, 796 F.3d 399 (4th Cir. 2015), which found South Carolina’s antirobocall law to be unconstitutional, plaintiff maintains that Reed v. Gilbert, 135 S. Ct. 2218 (2015), made these decisions obsolete and dooms both state and federal anti-robocall statutes as instances of content discrimination. We disagree with that contention and conclude that Indiana’s law is valid.

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.