There is a sense of proportion missing from this. I am a plaintiff in a civil suit; but I am on the Chungs’ side all the way.

I don’t begrudge the defense the right to defend themselves; what I detest and despise is violations of ethics, lies
and manipulation because of
wanting to avoid responsibility. The Chungs have not done this.

Punt Mr. Pearson to the curb, get him another job at the public teat. That should shut him up.

Fly-by-night operation X snows low-level employees of A, B, and C to purchase junk-fax services. X squirrels the money away offshore and then sends the illegal faxes; A, B, and C are bankrupted by the resulting lawsuits, while X shuts itself down, and opens fly-by-night operation Y. Shampoo, rinse, repeat. This is documented in much more detail in July, but you know this already, since you commented there, too.

“A dollar’s worth of jail time for mugging” isn’t the right analogy. Leave aside the fact that mugging is a violent crime, and is punished for the violence rather than for the value of the individual theft. The comparable analogy to the junk fax laws would be permitting victims of muggings to file civil suits against any business that unknowingly accepted the proceedings of the mugging in selling goods or services to the mugger.

There’s no reason that damages for junk faxes could not be capped at the greater of $10,000 or economic damages.

Do you likewise suggest that a mugger who got away with only a dollar does only a dollar’s worth of jail time?

Finally, these aren’t “hapless merchants” junk-faxing you — they’re crafty merchants trying to stick you with their marketing costs. Junk faxing is a form of theft, and it will only stop when it becomes less lucrative to steal others’ time and hijack their phone lines than paying the full cost of getting an ad in front of a potential customer.