During the spring and summer of 2014, Edward and Geneva Irvine received numerous "hang-up" phone calls, including three calls in the middle of the night. With the help of their local phone company, the Irvine’s learned that many of the calls were from the telemarketing department of the Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio. The Beacon’s sales force was equipped with an automatic dialing machine. During business hours, the dialer was used to maximize productivity by calling multiple phone numbers at once and connecting a call to a sales representative only after it was answered. After business hours, the Beacon programmed its dialer to dial a list of disconnected numbers to determine whether they had been reconnected. If the dialer detected a ring, it recorded the information and dropped the call. However, if the automated dialing system crashed, which happened frequently, it redialed the entire list all over again. The Irvine’s filed a suit in an Ohio state court against the Beacon, alleging, among other things, an invasion of privacy.

Required:
In whose favor should the court rule, and why?

It was a very complex case (it also included another case against Beacon for trying to gather information regarding the family, but it was ruled in their favor) were both sides appealed different decisions. The appeals court ruled 1 out of 14 assignments of error in favor of Akron beacon Journal, but it was a minor issue. Most of the original outcome was upheld, with the Irvines being assigned more than $100,000 in different types of damages + their attorney's fees.

Akron beacon Journal was found guilty of violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and invading the Irvines' privacy.

Using this type of machines are illegal and what makes things worse is that the marketing department of Beacon knew it wasn't working properly and they kept resetting it. It made a lot of calls to the Irvines at hours that no one would expect them, all after or before working hours. Their actions were deliberate since they were in desperate need of new subscribers to their newspaper.