An opinion out of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that was issued last week started making the rounds last night because it addresses the issue of standing, albeit related to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The Court reversed a District Court ruling by determining that the receipt of a single ringless voicemail message is enough of a concrete injury for the plaintiff to have standing to sue in federal court.
A copy of the ruling in the case of Dickson v. Direct Energy can be accessed by clicking here.
The plaintiff alleged that he received a number of ringless voicemails to his cell phone in 2017 and never consented to receiving the messages. He filed suit, alleging the defendant violated the TCPA by making calls to his cell phone using an automated telephone dialing system without first obtaining his consent. During discovery, it was determined that of the 11 messages the plaintiff alleged he received, only one was from the defendant. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss, arguing the plaintiff lacked standing because he did not suffer a concrete injury. The District Court judge granted the motion, ruling that because the plaintiff didn’t recall exactly what he was doing when he received the message, because he wasn’t charged for it, because it didn’t tie up his phone line, and because he spent an “exceedingly small amount of time” reviewing the message, he didn’t suffer a concrete injury.
Not so fast, the Appeals Court ruled. Looking at the Supreme Court rulings on standing, as well as a ruling from the Seventh Circuit in Gadelhak v. AT&T Services and how the Sixth Circuit applied it in Ward v. NPAS, the receipt of a ringless voicemail is an intrusion upon the plaintiff’s seclusion.
“Dickson’s receipt of an unsolicited RVM bears a close relationship to the kind of injury protected by the common law tort of intrusion upon seclusion; and his claimed harm directly correlates with the protections enshrined by Congress in the TCPA,” the Appeals Court wrote. “Therefore, Dickson suffered a concrete injury in fact sufficient for Article III standing purposes.”
