by Sophie LaCava | Apr 21, 2021 | Commentary |
In 1991, Congress took action against the onslaught of undesired robocalls faced by households and individuals. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) established a variety of safeguards aimed at reducing the amount of uninvited calls consumers receive. One of the most important provisions of the TCPA prohibits the use of “any automatic telephone dialing system” (autodialer) to place unsolicited calls. The statute defines an autodialer as “equipment which has the capacity– (A) to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and (B) to dial such numbers.” Precisely what falls within the scope of an autodialer has already been subject to much debate. In 2003, the Federal Communications Commission, the agency with authority to administer the TCPA, determined that the use of an autodialer encompassed sending text messages. Much more recently in 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected the FCC’s interpretation of “capacity” which included potential functionalities or future possibilities, as opposed to merely present capacity, as impermissibly broad. The Facebook v. Duguid Decision On April 1, 2021, the Supreme Court issued a decision that renders another important interpretive judgment as to what falls under the scope of an autodialer. The recent case, Facebook v. Duguid, determined whether automated text messages sent by Facebook violate the TCPA. The Ninth Circuit had held that the autodialer prohibition applies to notification systems like Facebook’s that automatically dial stored numbers. Upon Facebook’s appeal, however, the Supreme Court unanimously disagreed. The Supreme Court’s ruling hinged on the statute’s specification that an autodialer must use a “random or sequential number generator.”...
