There's a law that was created a while back when companies would
spam fax numbers with advertisements, causing annoyance, tying
up the fax machine, and wasting toner. The law put harsh penalties
on the practice - up to $1,500 per page received. Now, a lawyer
is suing a sandwich shop manager for sending him such faxes:
A sandwich shop manager contends he was only trying to clear some
old customers out of his fax machine's speed dial when he accidentally
started sending his daily menu specials to a Tampa law office.
"I got tired of getting junk faxes," Tampa criminal
lawyer William "Casey" Ebsary said Friday. "I was
being inundated with faxes from all types of businesses."
So this year, Ebsary said, he contacted a lawyer with expertise
in a law that makes it illegal to fax business advertisements
to anyone who is not a customer or has not given written permission
to do so.
Thomas filed a lawsuit on behalf of Ebsary in February against
the Twins Luncheon restaurant in Oldsmar. The lawsuit seeks between
$5,000 and $15,000 in compensation for 34 unsolicited faxes sent
to Ebsary's office, some after Twins Luncheon was notified by
certified mail that the practice was illegal, according to court
records. "They were on notice to stop doing it, and they
kept doing it," Thomas said.

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Ebsary could have asked for up to $51,000 in actual and punitive
damages, but "he doesn't want to kill the guy, he doesn't
want to own the restaurant," Thomas said. "Just give
him reasonable compensation for what you've done."
Ok, so it seems like a pretty reasonable case so far. The guy's
getting junk faxes and the person sending them ignored warnings
to stop. But you know I wouldn't be posting about this if it were
that simple:
Twins Luncheon manager Mike Palazzolo, and the owner, his uncle,
Ron Palazzolo, said the $7,500 figure they were offered to settle
the matter is anything but reasonable. Mike Palazzolo said he
routinely faxes his daily special to regular customers. When a
couple of them asked to be taken off his mailing list this year,
the manager said he was unable to remove the numbers from his
fax machine's speed dialer and instead entered a long series of
identical digits in their place. He assumed those numbers would
be meaningless, but they turned out to be Ebsary's fax number.
When Thomas sent the registered letter Feb. 16 warning of the
impending lawsuit, Mike Palazzolo said he immediately called Thomas'
law office to ask what number he should remove from the speed
dialer. The number Palazzolo said he was given did not match anything
on his machine. He said he finally figured out which number was
Ebsary's about the time the lawsuit was filed Feb. 24. Ronald
Palazzolo said a simple telephone call with the correct number
would have resolved the matter the first day Ebsary received one
of his nephew's faxes.
"If they had just given us the right number, we would have
taken it off," the elder Palazzolo said. "Why do they
have to make such a big production out of it? We are a small business.
I was going to give them $3,000 out of my pocket just to get the
guy off my back," he said. "I understand the law and
I think it's a good law, but it was inadvertent ... He's the one
that's taking advantage of us."
So the lawyer told the manager to stop faxing him, but couldn't
even provide his number? And what kind of stupid fax machine doesn't
let you remove numbers from its autodialer? Hell, for the price
of the lawsuit the manager could have unplugged the current machine
and bought a new one that wasn't a total piece of crap.
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