• On May 8, 2012, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey dismissed a case that Verizon Wireless and OnStar brought against several health-plan providers for making allegedly unlawful “robocalls” in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act. The court dismissed the claims on the ground that the plaintiffs do not have standing and are not within the “zone of interests” protected by these statutes. The court found that a “burgeoning body of case law establishes that only the ‘called party,’ i.e., the ‘intended recipient,’ has statutory standing to bring suit under the TCPA.” Verizon tried to stand in the shoes of its employees to whom it provides so-called concession accounts, but the court was unpersuaded. The court also disagreed that these laws were drafted to protect the injuries complained of by Verizon and OnStar: “Plaintiffs do not fall into the zone of interests protected by the TCPA. Their damages are not of the vexatious and intrusive nuisance nature sought to be redressed by Congress in enacting the TCPA, but rather are indirect, economic and inherent to their business.” Cellco Partnership v. Wilcrest Health Care Management Inc., et al., No. 3:09-cv-03534 (D. N.J.).