Supremes Refuse To Hear Clear Channel Telemarketing Suit

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal Monday in a class action against Clear Channel Communications and its Critical Mass Media division, letting stand a Sixth Circuit ruling finding that robocalls promoting radio stations are exempted from the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and that such cases are preempted under the Hobbs Act.

The court made no comment with the refusal.

Frequent anti-telemarketing litigant Mark Leyse was appealing his case over automated telemarketing calls.

Leyse sued in June 2005 over robocalls by AC WLTW LiteFM in NYC, but the case was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2006 because the court ruled the FCC had exempted in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act the kind of call Clear Channel made.

He lost an appeal, then filed again in Southern District Court in Hamilton County, Ohio in April 2009; the case was dismissed in June 2010 for failure to state a claim, and Leyse appealed to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, losing the appeal in a ruling that was later amended.