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1 1 (December 8, 2022)

handle is hein.crs/govejrk0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional_______ R fesearch Service Constitutional Limits to Congress's Statutory Damages Authority: Takeaways from the Ninth Circuit in Wakefield v. ViSalus December 8, 2022 A central question any time Congress exercises its legislative power is what consequences may follow from violating the law. For laws that create private rights of action-in other words, a law that permits an individual to bring a lawsuit-violators may be subject to monetary liability in the form of damages. Laws that permit recovery of damages may distinguish between actual damages, an amount meant to approximate the monetary harm caused by the unlawful conduct that will vary case by case, and statutory damages, a fixed amount or range of amounts set by the law. Statutory damages may provide plaintiffs an alternative means of monetary recovery when proving actual damages is difficult. Although Congress has broad leeway to set statutory damages, the Constitution sets limits. In Wakefield v ViSalus, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated a statutory damages award of more than $900 million under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), holding that the district court had not properly considered the award under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Ninth Circuit's decision does not invalidate any portion of the TCPA, but it reflects a potential limit to statutory damages awarded under the statute. The decision may impact other statutory schemes as well, due to a dearth of case law on the constitutionality of statutory damages. Damages Under the TCPA The TCPA is the primary federal statute addressing robocalls made to residential and wireless phones. The TCPA makes it illegal to call any wireless phone number without the recipient's consent using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enforces the TCPA, but the statute also allows for a private right of action. A person who receives an unsolicited robocall may sue the caller and recover either actual monetary loss or $500 per violation, whichever is greater. Each call made in violation of the TCPA is a separate violation of the law. Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10873 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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