CONSENT PREVAILS!: Aetna and Signify Health Off the TCPA Hook For Member Benefit Calls After Winning MSJ On Consent Grounds

Here’s a little good news for TCPAWorld headed into the weekend.

In Phelps v. Signify Health, 2025 WL 3101236 (D. Az Nov. 6, 2025) the defendants Aetna and Signify Health were able to escape potentially massive damages in a TCPA suit by leveraging  consent form signed by the Plaintiff– and in so doing took a narrow read of marketing for purposes of assessing consent.

In Phelps the parties agreed Plaintiff provided transactional consent to Aetna by providing his number to Aetna as part of his registration process for a health plan. There was also no dispute that Signify–a company that calls Aetna enrollees to notify members of healthcare services included in the member’s plan– thereafter called Plaintiff with the following message:

Hello my name is and I am calling on Behalf of , your insurance provider. I was hoping to speak with you about a valuable service that’s included in your membership. If you would please call . We are available 7am to 7pm Central Time Monday through Friday. We look forward to hearing from you and have a wonderful day.

Defendants moved for summary judgment arguing the message was not marketing and the scope of the consent Plaintiff provided was broad enough to cover both the message and the actions of both parties.

The Court agreed.

As to the marketing issue (i.e. scope of consent issue) the Court found the following:

Whether Signify Health was motivated by profit or an altruistic desire to improve Plaintiff’s health is ultimately irrelevant to the analysis of the scope of consent that was actually created. Under the FTCA, the question is whether the calls by Signify Health were within the scope of consent and are related to the reasons Plaintiff provided the number in the first place. The Court finds that, as a matter of law, they are. Like the scope of consent in Van Patten, the undisputed evidence demonstrates that when Plaintiff provided his number, he consented to communications related to his health care plan. The undisputed evidence also shows the actual calls received by Plaintiff were about “a valuable service that’s included in [his] membership”—scheduling healthcare appointments. These calls were directly related to Plaintiff’s existing policy and did not attempt to induce Plaintiff to sign up for services unrelated to his policy. Even if Plaintiff opted out of receiving other communications, the communications he received from Signify Health are within the scope of consent as a matter of law.

Interesting, no?

The Court put no focus on the issue of profit or marketing and was entirely focused on whether the scope of the message matched the scope of the consent. There is an implied finding the message was informational in nature– otherwise express written consent would seemingly have been required– but that is not expressly stated.

In determining whether the consent covered Signify’s calls the Court took another very interesting approach. It held that because Signify was Aetna’s agent the calls at issue were to be treated as if Aetna itself made the calls– and that means they were made with consent!

Yep.

So this was an unusual setting in which a TCPA defendant argued the caller WAS its agent–usually the argument is precisely the opposite. Very odd but very interesting– and a nuance TCPA defendants should keep in mind.

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Chat soon.