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MADISON - ST. CLAIR RECORD

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Anti-fax plaintiff gets ok to fax for more anti-fax plaintiffs

Why anyone still has a fax machine is not easily understood. If anyone still does, getting unsolicited faxes could be annoying.

Sure, you could fax the sender back and ask to be dropped from the list. Or you could program your machine not to accept calls from certain numbers.

But why do the obvious when you can go to court instead?

Since 2005, Locklear Electric in Wood River has initiated at least eight class action lawsuits in Madison and St. Clair Counties about unsolicited faxes.

Now Mixon Insurance Agency wants to get into the act.

Mixon filed suit against Taylorville Chiropractic Clinic in 2009, charging that the clinic and its director violated the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act by sending unsolicited fax advertisements.

Mixon had received one fax from the clinic -- two and a half years earlier.

In the few minutes it took to transmit and print and be read and discarded, this fax disrupted the routine of the company's staff and caused severe psychological trauma for everyone in the office, their complaint would have us believe.

Mixon charges that the unsolicited fax tied up its machine (momentarily), used up (minute amounts of) toner and paper, and (briefly) diverted employees from other duties.

But Mixon wasn't the only company to be victimized in this brutal manner. No, there are at least 39 other companies that may have been similarly abused, and Mixon wants to stand up for all of them.

That's because the real action's in class action. Mixon wants to lead a suit against Taylorville Chiropractic on behalf of all businesses that received unsolicited faxes from the clinic.

St. Clair County Circuit Judge Lloyd Cueto recently approved Mixon's request to send a class notice to potential class members.

How will Mixon contact them all? By fax, of course.

If some of these fax recipients resent being pestered, there's always the option of considering a class action against Mixon.

Tell us what you think about the complaint, but please, no faxes, we don't have a fax machine.

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