Greetings TCPAWorld!
Huge, huge news out of Chicago. The seesaw battle we have been tracking just tilted hard toward the defense bar. In Steidinger v. Blackstone Medical Services, No. 25-2398, 2026 WL 2028517 (7th Cir. July 14, 2026), the Seventh Circuit became the first federal court of appeals to squarely hold that text messages are not “telephone calls” under Section 227(c)(5) of the TCPA. Just wow! That means no private right of action for unwanted marketing texts under the DNC rules anywhere in the Seventh Circuit. Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin just went green.
And yes, the map has been updated. Take a look below! For the first time since we started tracking this split, an entire circuit has flipped based on binding appellate authority on the defense side of the ledger.
Quick refresher for anyone just tuning in. This all started when the Central District of Illinois dismissed a DNC class action against Blackstone Medical Services, the home sleep test company, holding that Section 227(c)(5)’s private right of action reaches only “telephone calls” and not text messages. Jones v. Blackstone Med. Servs., LLC, 792 F. Supp. 3d 894 (C.D. Ill. 2025). The plaintiffs, who alleged they kept receiving marketing texts and calls even after indicating they did not want to be contacted, including by replying “STOP” or registering on the National DNC Registry, appealed. (One footnote for the litigators out there is that the panel noted the plaintiffs never argued their suit could proceed on the alleged calls alone, so that argument was waived.) In turn, the case went up under the caption Steidinger, drew amicus briefs from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Fashion Nova, and the national Republican campaign committees, and was argued on May 21, 2026, before Judges Kirsch, Pryor, and Maldonado. And… now it is official. You can read the full opinion here.
So how did the panel get there? Judge Kirsch, writing for the court, went full textualist. The opinion starts with the ordinary public meaning of “telephone call” at the time of the TCPA’s enactment in 1991, noting that it is undisputed the term could not have covered text messages then, as the first text message was not sent until the following year. Steidinger, 2026 WL 2028517, at *2. Consulting contemporaneous dictionaries, the court found a “telephone” was an instrument for reproducing sounds at a distance and a “call” meant getting into communication by telephone, so a telephone call in 1991 referred to communication via sound. Id.
Text messages do not reproduce sounds.
But the court did not stop there. It leaned hard on the meaningful-variation canon. The surrounding subsections of Section 227(c) repeatedly use the defined term “telephone solicitation,” which the statute defines as “the initiation of a telephone call or message.” Yet Section 227(c)(5) creates a private right of action only for a person who has received more than one “telephone call.” Id. at *2-3. Here, Congress used the broader term elsewhere and the narrower term in the private right of action, and the court presumed that difference was intentional. Because the statute’s own definition distinguishes between calls and messages, the two must be different things, and modern text messages are better understood as messages. Id. at *3. The court even pointed to the fax provisions as proof that, in 1991, Congress knew how to regulate text-based communications sent over telephone lines and called them messages, not calls. Id.
So what about Campbell-Ewald and all the circuit decisions saying texts are calls? The panel dispatched them. Campbell-Ewald merely assumed the point because neither party contested it, as the Supreme Court itself later explained in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, and the Seventh Circuit’s own prior statements in Warciak and Douglas involved Section 227(b), not Section 227(c)(5). Id. at *3-4. The court likewise brushed aside the First, Second, and Eleventh Circuit decisions as pre-Duguid and Section 227(b) cases. And the kicker here is that the panel declared itself “uncompelled” by the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Howard v. Republican National Committee, 164 F.4th 1119 (9th Cir. 2026), which held texts are calls under the TCPA. Steidinger, 2026 WL 2028517, at *4. But note the caveat: the panel grouped Howard with the other circuit decisions as cases concerning “claims brought under § 227(b), not § 227(c)(5).” Id. So is this a square circuit split? The Seventh Circuit says texts are not calls under (c)(5); the Ninth Circuit says texts are calls, but it said so in a Section 227(b) case. Expect the plaintiff’s bar to argue there is no clean split on (c)(5) itself, and expect defendants to argue the Seventh Circuit rejected the very premise that a “telephone call” includes a text. Either way, the tension between the circuits is now impossible to ignore.
The FCC fared no better. Citing McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Corp., the court explained it is not bound by the FCC’s interpretation and owes the agency only “appropriate respect,” and it reviewed the statutory question de novo. Steidinger, 2026 WL 2028517, at *4. The FCC’s 2024 extension of DNC Registry protections to text messages was promulgated under Section 227(c)(3), which uses the broader “telephone solicitations” language, so it says nothing about the meaning of “telephone call” in (c)(5). Id. And the court rejected the congressional-ratification argument too, observing that Congress has amended other portions of Section 227 to expressly cover text messages but never touched Section 227(c)(5), so its inaction cuts both ways at best. Id. at *5.
The plaintiffs’ final appeal to the TCPA’s remedial purpose went nowhere. In a passage that will be quoted in defense briefs for years, the court noted Congress was specifically concerned that telemarketing calls seize telephone lines needed for emergency or medical assistance, and spam texts simply do not pose that risk, making it at the very least reasonable that the private right of action would cover calls but not messages. Id. Repeated unwanted texts are “undoubtedly a nuisance,” the court acknowledged, but the remedy lies in agency action under other provisions of Section 227, not in Section 227(c)(5) litigation. Id.
So what does this mean for TCPAWorld?
First, the stalemate is broken. As the Czar wrote just a few weeks ago, we had settled into trench warfare, with the texts-are-calls courts and the texts-are-not-calls courts each digging in and no new territory changing hands. Steidinger changes that up. This is not another district court decision that only binds the parties. This is binding precedent across Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, and it abrogates the contrary Northern District of Illinois line, including Mujahid v. Newity, Hernandez v. Bedford Dental, and Rabbitt v. Rohrman Midwest Motors. The intra-circuit split in Illinois is over. Wisconsin, welcome aboard. The map just got greener.
Second, we now have circuit-level conflict. The Ninth Circuit says texts are calls under the TCPA. Howard v. Republican Nat’l Comm., 164 F.4th 1119 (9th Cir. 2026). The Seventh Circuit now says they are not, at least under Section 227(c)(5), and it said so while looking Howard in the eye, even while noting Howard arose under Section 227(b). A conflict between two courts of appeals over the meaning of the very same statutory word, with a mountain of pending cases hanging in the balance, is exactly the kind of issue the Supreme Court takes up. Keep an eye on the cert clock here. And do not forget the Eleventh Circuit has the Radvansky v. Kendo Holdings appeal pending before it, with the deepest bench of district-level texts-are-not-calls decisions in the country sitting beneath it. If the Eleventh follows the Seventh, the pressure on the Supreme Court becomes enormous.
Third, and this is important, do not rip up your SMS compliance program. Section 227(c)(5) is one exposure lane, not the entire highway. The TCPA’s Section 227(b) regulated-technology provisions, the FCC’s enforcement authority, and the ever-growing web of state mini-TCPAs, including the FTSA down in Florida and the Texas statutes we have covered, all remain very much alive. Texts may not be calls for purposes of Section 227(c)(5) in the Seventh Circuit, but they are absolutely still regulated.
Fourth, questions about what this means for your SMS program? Troutman Amin, LLP lawyers have answers. Give us a buzz!
Lastly, we will be watching this one very closely. A rehearing or cert petition may be coming, the Eleventh Circuit is on deck, and new district court decisions are dropping every week!
As always, keep it legal, keep it smart, and stay ahead of the game.
Chat soon!
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