In a 9-0 opinion issued on April 1, 2021, the United States Supreme Court held that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) defined “automatic telephone dialing system” (ATDS) to include only those devices which have the capacity to store or produce a telephone number using a random or sequential number generator.
This ruling in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, one of the most influential rulings on the TCPA to date, resolves a Circuit split regarding the definition of ATDS. The Supreme Court’s opinion ultimately aligned with Facebook, the federal government, and more than a dozen amici curiae’s stance that the 9th Circuit’s ruling below—construing broadly the TCPA’s prohibition on robocalls to outlaw notifications such as Facebook’s security verification texts—should be overruled. Facebook’s arguments on appeal, and the Supreme Court’s decision, hinged largely upon a narrow construction of the statutory text.
The decision presents welcomed clarity regarding the growing inconsistency amongst the Circuit courts regarding the application of the TCPA’s regulation of ATDS. The ruling is expected to curb the growing number of putative class actions seeking to establish liability of corporate actors for similar electronic notifications under this decades-old statute.