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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

9th Circuit ruling broadens the definition of automatic telephone dialing system under TCPA

Courts ACA International Ninth Circuit TCPA Autodialer D.C. Circuit Appellate

Courts

On September 20, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit vacated the district court’s order granting summary judgment in a TCPA action, in light of the recent D.C. Circuit opinion in ACA International v. FCC (covered by a Buckley Sandler Special Alert). The case arises from a plaintiff’s allegations that a California gym violated the TCPA by sending three text messages to the plaintiff’s cell phone. In October 2014, the district court granted summary judgment for the gym, holding that the automatic text messaging system used by the gym was not an “automatic telephone dialing system” (autodialer) under the TCPA because it lacked the capacity “to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator.” In 2016, the 9th Circuit stayed the appeal of the district court’s ruling pending the ACA International decision, which was issued in March of this year. In ACA International, the D.C. Circuit struck down the FCC’s definition of an autodialer, reasoning that the FCC’s definition “unreasonably, and impermissibly” included all smartphones while inadequately describing the functions that made a device an autodialer.

Because the ACA International decision set aside the FCC’s definition, the 9th Circuit performed its own review of the statutory definition of an autodialer in the TCPA. Through this review, the court concluded that the TCPA defined an autodialer as “equipment which has the capacity—(i) to store numbers to be called, or (ii) to produce numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator—and to dial such numbers automatically (even if the system must be turned on or triggered by a person).” Because the text system used by the gym stores numbers and dials them automatically to send the messages to the stored list of phone numbers, the 9th Circuit held there is a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the system qualified as an “autodialer” and remanded the case to district court for further proceedings.