Recently, the Eastern District of Missouri added to the split among courts deciding whether they can hear TCPA claims alleging robocall violations that occurred when the now-invalidated government debt exception was part of the statute. As we have previously reported on here, some district courts have joined Creasy v. Charter Communications, Inc., 2020 WL 5761117 (E.D. La. Sept. 28, 2020), in holding that subject matter jurisdiction is lacking in such cases, but a growing number—now including the Eastern District of Missouri—have disagreed. Miles v. Medicredit, Inc., No. 4:20-cv-001186, 2021 WL 872678 (E.D. Mo. Mar. 9, 2021).
The scenario at issue in this case is a familiar one. Defendant Medicredit is a medical debt collector. Plaintiff Miles contended that Medicredit violated the TCPA’s prohibition on making calls using an ATDS or an artificial or prerecorded voice by placing six such calls to his cell phone, without his consent, in January and February 2018. Not so, Medicredit responded, for the prohibition at issue, 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii), was unconstitutional at the time Medicredit allegedly made the calls to Miles because the provision contained an exception, for calls to collect government debts, that the Supreme Court later invalidated as a content-based restriction on speech that violated the First Amendment. Thus, Medicredit argued in its motion to dismiss that the court, having no statutory basis to enforce the alleged violations, lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear the suit.