U.S. Supreme Court Holds TCPA Litigation Not Confined to State Courts

TCPA

On January 18, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) does not require that private actions seeking redress under the TCPA be heard only by state courts. Mims v. Arrow Financial Services, LLC, No. 10-1195, 2012 WL 125429 (Jan. 18, 2012). The decision reversed an Eleventh Circuit decision upholding a district court’s finding that Congress had placed exclusive jurisdiction over private TCPA actions in state courts. In so reversing, the Supreme Court contravened prior decisions from the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Ninth circuits. Unlike those decisions, the Supreme Court found no reason to convert the TCPA’s permissive grant of jurisdiction to state courts into an exclusive grant barring the federal-question jurisdiction of U.S. district courts. According to the Supreme Court, in the TCPA Congress enacted “detailed, uniform, federal substantive prescriptions” related to telemarketing and “provided for a regulatory regime administered by a federal agency.” Congress could have, but did not, seek only to fill gaps in states’ enforcement capability.