The Sixth Circuit today decided Health One Medical Center v. Mohawk, a mighty strange case under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (the federal anti-junk-fax statute). The first paragraph of Judge Kethledge's opinion sums it up:
Some questions seem to arise only in class-action lawsuits. Here, a seller of prescription drugs sent junk faxes to various medical providers,advertising the seller’s prices on various drugs. The question presented is whether—for purposes of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which makes it unlawful “to send . . . an unsolicited advertisement” to a fax machine—the manufacturers of those drugs “sent” those faxes even though they knew nothing about them. The district court answered no, and so do we.
