The complaint, originally filed in 2015, asserted claims for violations of the Federal Communication Act and state claims for breach of contract and unjust enrichment. 

Key to Totenberg’s sanctions ruling was evidence that GTL—which had maintained for years that the inmates and their friends and family members had agreed to have their accounts raided by assenting to an automated message when setting them up—had not provided any such notice.

“GTL did more than simply hide that it had removed the statement in early 2014 from its automated phone script — it also produced documents and provided deposition testimony that all putative class members actually heard the statement,” she wrote.

“Four years after plaintiffs filed their lawsuit, it turned out that critical discovery testimony and responses—and in turn, a centerpiece of GTL’s defense in this litigation—were based on a misrepresentation that boils down to a lie,” Totenberg wrote. “GTL insisted, over and over again in different variants, that this lie was the truth.”