The Supreme Court has rejected a petition to hear arguments in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case that sought to challenge the definition of an automated telephone dialing system because it did not generate telephone numbers using a random or sequential number generator.
The Background: Last August, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling that dismissed the case, issuing two separate rulings. The ruling that most people focused on determined that text messages sent to an individual are not considered “prerecorded messages” because they do not include auditory components.
- But in a separate ruling, the Ninth Circuit also tackled the definition of an ATDS.
The Petition: Noting that the definition of an ATDS set forth by the Ninth Circuit was not the same as the definition set forth by the Supreme Court in Facebook v. Duguid, the plaintiff petitioned the Supreme Court to hear the case.
- The question the plaintiff sought the Supreme Court to answer was: Does the plain language of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act’s (“TCPA”) definition of an Automatic Telephone Dialing System and this Court’s holding in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid, require a plaintiff to allege that telephone dialing equipment uses a number generator to generate the telephone numbers themselves, or does it merely require the use of a random or sequential number generator to store or produce telephone numbers to be called?
- The Supreme Court decided it not need to answer the question and denied the petition to hear arguments.
