Court Reverses Course, Grants Summary Judgment to TCPA Defendant on ATDS Issue in Wake of ACA International
Posted: Thu Dec 26, 2024 10:51 am
The district court in the Northern District of Illinois granted summary judgment to the defendant in a TCPA case on the grounds that its dialing system no longer fit the definition of an automatic telephone dialing system (“ATDS”) because it dialed numbers from a stored list. In doing so, the Court reversed its previous decision on summary judgment and clearly rejected the FCC’s previous guidance on the issue.
While this is good news for many companies, the details on the 99 acres data user list database and safe harbor are still unclear as the FCC has not officially released the order yet. There is no timetable for the database’s construction, and the Commission plans to select an independent third party to administer the database.
While the FCC has yet to formally release a copy of the final order with the safe harbor language, a press release announcing adoption of the rule is available here.
Plaintiff Rachel Johnson alleged the defendant’s text messaging services caused text messages to be sent to her by pulling her number from its address book and automatically sending text messages to her cell phone, violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227, et seq. (“TCPA”). In first denying the defendant’s motion for summary judgment in 2014, the Court reluctantly relied on FCC decisions from 2003, 2008, and 2012 that interpreted “ATDS” to include systems that dialed numbers from a stored list without human intervention. The Court noted its disagreement with this expansive interpretation but concluded that it was bound to follow the FCC guidance.
While this is good news for many companies, the details on the 99 acres data user list database and safe harbor are still unclear as the FCC has not officially released the order yet. There is no timetable for the database’s construction, and the Commission plans to select an independent third party to administer the database.
While the FCC has yet to formally release a copy of the final order with the safe harbor language, a press release announcing adoption of the rule is available here.
Plaintiff Rachel Johnson alleged the defendant’s text messaging services caused text messages to be sent to her by pulling her number from its address book and automatically sending text messages to her cell phone, violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227, et seq. (“TCPA”). In first denying the defendant’s motion for summary judgment in 2014, the Court reluctantly relied on FCC decisions from 2003, 2008, and 2012 that interpreted “ATDS” to include systems that dialed numbers from a stored list without human intervention. The Court noted its disagreement with this expansive interpretation but concluded that it was bound to follow the FCC guidance.