St. Louis, MO: A class action lawsuit has been filed against Forest Laboratories over allegations the pharmaceutical company sent junk faxes about a blood pressure drug, which is in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).
The lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, St. Louis Heart Center Inc, alleges it received 40 junk faxes from Forest Laboratories between August 2010 and January 2011. The faxes promoted the hypertension medication Bystolic, manufactured by Forest, and invited the company to teleconferences and presentations at restaurants.
The plaintiff claims that these faxes are in violation of the TCPA, which prohibits companies from sending or having someone else send unsolicited advertisements via fax.
Specifically, the lawsuit, entitled St. Louis Heart Center Inc. v. Forest Pharmaceuticals Inc., et al., Case No. 12-cv-02224, states: "Unsolicited faxes prevent fax machines from receiving authorized faxes, prevent their use for authorized outgoing faxes, cause undue wear and tear on the recipients' fax machines, and require additional labor to attempt to discern the source and purpose of the unsolicited message."And "A junk fax consumes a portion of the limited capacity of telecommunications infrastructure servicing the victims of junk faxing."
The TCPA lawsuit is brought on behalf of anyone who received a fax advertisement from Forest or co-defendant The Peer Group within the last four years without giving prior permission or having an existing business relationship with the defendants. It is seeking damages, interest and an injunction barring the defendants from further violating the TCPA.
