Circle City Broadcasting has filed papers appealing summary judgments dismissing its discrimination suits against satellite-TV providers DirecTV and Dish Network.
Circle City is asking the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a U.S. District Court judge’s decision to throw out the cases without a trial and order the lower court to hold a jury trial.
DirecTV had no comment on the appeal.
Circle City had sued the satellite companies because they refused to pay retrans fees after Circle City bought Indianapolis TV stations WISH and WIND from Nexstar Media Group.
Dish and DirecTV had been paying retrans fees to Nexstar.
Also Read: Judge Denies Dish Motion To Remove 17 Words From Circle City Suit Decision
Dujuan McCoy, owner of Circle City, charged Dish and DirecTV were discriminating against the stations because they were now part of a Black-owned business. The satellite companies said that the stations were now owned by a smaller company without leverage and that was why they wouldn’t pay.
In her decisions, Chief Judge Tanya Walton Pratt of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana ruled Circle City hadn’t produced evidence that the satellite companies acted out of “racial animus or intent to discriminate based on race.”
