BREAKING–SCOTUS DECIDES FACEBOOK-NARROWLY INTERPRETS TCPA’S ATDS DEFINITION

3 Comments

The Supreme Court decided the heavily-awaited appeal of the TCPA’s controversial ATDS definition.

This is NOT an April fool’s day prank.

Hoding:

To qualify as an “automatic telephone dialing system,” a device must have the capacity either to store a telephone number using a random or sequential generator or to produce a telephone number using a random or sequential number generator.

In a unanimous opinion–which was issued this morning– the Court adopted a narrow interpretation of the statute.

More coverage here.

Decision here: Facebook v Duguid

Separately, I am never going on vacation again.

Categories:

Published by Eric J. Troutman

The Czar of TCPAWorld Eric Troutman is one of the country’s prominent class action defense lawyers and is nationally recognized in Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) litigation and compliance. He has served as lead defense counsel in more than 70 national TCPA class actions and has litigated nearly a thousand individual TCPA cases in his role as national strategic litigation counsel for major banks and finance companies. He also helps industry participants build TCPA-compliant processes, policies, and systems. Eric has built a national litigation practice based upon deep experience, rigorous analysis and extraordinary responsiveness. Eric and his team feel equally at home litigating multibillion dollar telecommunications class actions in federal court as they do developing and executing national litigation strategies for institutions facing an onslaught of individual TCPA matters. They thrive in each of these roles – delivering consistently excellent results – while never losing sight of the client experience. While many firms now tout TCPA expertise, Eric has been there from the beginning. He built one of the country’s first TCPA-only defense teams and began serving as national TCPA counsel for his clients nearly a decade ago. This perspective allows him to swiftly develop the right litigation strategies for dealing with recurring problems, without wasting time on tactics that are bound to fail. Eric’s rich historical perspective and encyclopedic knowledge of the TCPA landscape also make him an invaluable resource to institutional compliance teams struggling to comply with the shifting regulatory landscape. No task is too small – or too big. Indeed, Eric and his team have helped build TCPA-compliant systems and processes for some of the largest and most complex corporate entities in the country. He commonly works with in-house compliance counsel to build and implement enterprise and business-line specific TCPA solutions, performs TCPA audits and drafts and reviews proposed TCPA policies and procedures. He and his team also have the technical expertise necessary to assist call centers seeking to develop TCPA-resistant call path architecture or to modify existing telephony and software integration to better insulate from potential TCPA exposure. Eric has built a reputation for thought leadership. An avid blogger and speaker, he has been at the forefront of the industry’s effort to push for clarity and a return to sanity for the TCPA for years. He was selected to advocate for the financial services industry on important TCPA issues before the Federal Communications Commission and co-authored the nation’s only comprehensive practice guide on TCPA defense. In his spare time, Eric leads defense teams representing banks and other financial services companies in consumer finance litigation matters. He has experience representing clients in UCC, TILA, RESPA FCRA, CCRA, CLRA, FDCPA, RFDCPA and FCCPA claims, as well as in fraud and bank operations issues.

3 Comments

  1. Of course the Supreme Court found in favor of Facebook. Facebook is the social media department of the US government. Zuckerberg and company get a pass. I could have told you this two months ago. Where does that leave small businesses? We are still subjected to the vagrancies of this outdated regulation. You take Janet Oh’s Allstate Insurance Brokerage, which made two phone calls to Abante Rooter and Plumbing in 2018, and was forced to shut her agency down as a result of Allstate’s settlement.

    Text messages are not telephone calls; therefore should not be included in the TCPA. Text messages did not exist when the TCPA was enacted in 1991. Try telling that to federal judges. Many courts have found that unsolicited texts can be included in the TCPA.

    The supreme court decision did not clear this distinction between phone calls and text messages. Instead, the court based its decision on the sending platform. SCOTUS said that Facebook texts are not really texts because they did not use defined ATDS equipment. “the equipment used must use a “random or sequential number generator” but the court concluded that Facebook’s system “does not use such technology,” Justice Sotomayor wrote.

    A text message is a text message when using certain equipment. But a text message is not a text message when using certain other equipment or technology. What is this equipment or this technology that Facebook used to avoid TCPA violations? I have a long line of companies interested. The court did not not say.

    I believe this to be be a political decision. It looks like the Supreme Court was looking for a way to help Facebook out of this mess. They did.

    Reply

  2. Please find out what technology Facebook used to send text messages.
    “The law requires that the equipment used must use a “random or sequential number generator” but the court concluded that Facebook’s system “does not use such technology,” Sotomayor added.

    Reply
  3. Pingback: FACEBOOK UPDATE: Here is Where Things Stand in TCPAWorld 8 Days From the Big Decision – TCPAWorld

Leave a Reply