AstroTel provides basic local telephone services, enhanced
services (e.g., voice mail), and Internet access to Florida residences and
small to mid-size businesses. Its
telecom network provides services to more than half of the state, and it
directly competes with Verizon.
Significant infrastructure is required to provide phone services, and
Verizon currently owns the only facilities that can do so in AstroTel’s
operating area, so AstroTel therefore leases access. AstroTel sued Verizon for, basically, making
it difficult for AstroTel to operate.
I’ll skip many of the claims, but among them were that Verizon
disparaged and misrepresented AstroTel’s products to the public.
Verizon successfully argued that the alleged
misrepresentations weren’t made in advertising or promotion as required by the Lanham
Act, because they weren’t sufficiently disseminated: AstroTel only alleged a few incidents, apparently from individual salespeople. AstroTel nonetheless successfully pled
tortious interference with contract by pleading that Verizon knowingly
interfered with its relationship with at least one customer, causing that
customer to switch. (The general
allegations of interference with prospective business relations, however,
failed because AstroTel didn’t identify a specific prospective relationship but
rather complained about its ability to do business in general.) Likewise, the state-law unfair competition
claim survived: Verizon’s allegedly disparaging statements to AstroTel
customers that AstroTel was a “useless middleman” etc. could have confused
customers about the nature of AstroTel’s business. The allegedly false representations also were
sufficient for AstroTel to plead business defamation/disparagement.
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