The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of a Telephone Consumer Protection Act lawsuit against a creditor over collection calls that were made to the plaintiff’s cell phone, saying the plaintiff did not provide enough facts to support his claim that the 800 calls he received over an 18-month period were made using an automated telephone dialing system or that the defendant used an artificial or prerecorded voice when making the calls.
The background: The plaintiff, who was incarcerated at the time of the lawsuit, claimed that between February 2021 and September 2022, the defendant made more than 800 calls to his cell phone in an effort to collect on an alleged car loan debt. He filed suit under the TCPA, alleging that the calls were placed without his consent, and that the defendant used an ATDS and a prerecorded voice in violation of the statute. The plaintiff sought $300,000 in statutory damages and an additional $1 million in punitive damages.
- A District Court judge agreed with the defendant that the plaintiff failed to plausibly allege either the use of an ATDS or a prerecorded voice in his complaint and granted a motion to dismiss. The plaintiff appealed.
The ruling: The Sixth Circuit upheld the district court’s dismissal. The court emphasized that the plaintiff’s complaint consisted largely of conclusory statements that simply repeated the statutory language without providing any factual detail to support the claims.
- On the ATDS claim, the court explained that the plaintiff needed to allege more than just a high volume of calls. He failed to provide any facts suggesting that the calls were made using equipment that had “the capacity to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator,” as required by the statute and the Supreme Court’s interpretation in Facebook, Inc. v. Duguid.
- The prerecorded voice claim fared no better. While the plaintiff alleged that he received hundreds of calls, he provided no description of the calls’ content or characteristics, such as “conspicuous periods of dead air” or a “lack of two-way interaction” that would allow the court to reasonably infer the use of a prerecorded voice.
- The court remarked pointedly: “While close might be enough in horseshoes and hand grenades — the same doesn’t go for federal pleading standards.”
