Noerr-Pennington and RICO

Do you love RICO and the First Amendment?  If so, then have I got a case for you.  Sosa v. DirecTV (here):

DIRECTV, Inc., et al. (“DIRECTV”) sent tens of thousands of demand letters alleging that the recipients had accessed DIRECTV’s satellite television signal illegally and would be sued if they did not quickly settle DIRECTV’s claims against them under the Federal Communications Act. Plaintiffs Rod Sosa, et al. (“Sosa”) filed this class action lawsuit on behalf of themselves and a putative class of recipients of the letters who reached settlements with DIRECTV, claiming that DIRECTV violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-1968, by mailing the presuit demand letters. The central question before us is whether DIRECTV is immune from liability under RICO, as interpreted in light of the Noerr-Pennington doctrine deriving from the Petition Clause of the First Amendment.

I still owe you a post on why eBay is a criminal enterprise, so I won't likely be blogging this case in any detail, though I will pass on the conclusion:

[T]he Noerr-Pennington doctrine requires that, to the extent possible, we construe federal statutes so as to avoid burdens on activity arguably falling within the scope of the Petition Clause of the First Amendment. Prelitigation communications demanding settlement of legal claims must be afforded Noerr-Pennington protection when we construe statutes asserted to regulate them. RICO does not unambiguously include the presuit demand letters in this case within the scope of conduct it enjoins, so we decline to give it such a broad construction. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court holding DIRECTV immune from liability and dismissing Sosa’s complaint.

Fortunately, the guy(s)/gal(s) at Decision of the Day would never let an interesting case like this escape notice.  Stay tuned...

Comments

[Gene]

I was one of those sued by Directv. I was in a prepaid one year contract when Directv said that I should now pay them more or loose the programming I paid for. I said we have 9 months left which I have paid for. They said pay us more now or we will take away the paid for programming. I refused the higher payment and they used there intellectual propertyrights to turn off the programming I paid for. In advance of there turning off the programming I bought a second access card. One which would stop there theft of my programming. 31 attorney general's sued Directv for having stolen the programming one year later. After the class action Directv then sued me in another court saying I was not permitted to stop there theft by buying an access card. This all occuring prior to the DMCA enactment. Noerr Pennington also blocked my rights to sue Directv and in addition they used the attorney general doctrine to stop my suit.
They demanded $15000.00 from me for using the card to block there theft.
First I have never heard of a law which prohibits someone from taking passive action to stop a crime. Second, I never heard of courts assisting someone to profit from a crime of theft. The case begins with a theft from me and I am being forced to pay $15000.00 for having taken defensive measures to stop the crime. Had I paid, the crime of theft for directv would have paid off.
There suit against me left out totally there theft of my programming, the class action of which they were made to pay 11 million. In spite of the fact they had stolen the programming from me they lied and said I had not paid them when I heald receipts and was part of the class action.
The government, the courts, attorney's are all good with this use of the courts to make such a false claim for profit. Because I didn't have the money to fight them.I had no choice but to settle. That or go banrupt fighting them. Now who says crime doesn't pay.