The Northern District of Illinois recently validated a company’s narrow interpretation for the scope of communications a party opts out of when it revokes consent under 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(d). In Stamper v. Manus-Northwestern Oral Health Center, Ltd., the court granted a defendant’s motion to dismiss confirming that the plaintiff did not adequately revoke consent to receive all marketing communications from the defendant after replying “stop” to one message instead of “STOPALL” as instructed to cease all communications. 2025 WL 2044093 (N.D. Ill. July 17, 2025). For companies with multipronged or multichannel communication streams, this decision provides validation that an opt-out from one category of message or specific campaign need not be read as a bar to all messages.
In Stamper, the plaintiff alleged they had “received texts advertising [defendant]’s services on at least a monthly basis from September 2022 to January 2023, despite repeatedly responding “stop” in an attempt to unsubscribe in the manner the messages instructed.” Id. at 1. The texts included notifications of open appointments, recall messages and reminders that a person was due for an appointment. Some of the texts were addressed to different individuals for whom the plaintiff had provided their number as the point of contact.
Defendant argued that it honored the “stop” request for that specific thread/topic; however, its texts sent after plaintiff’s “stop” text did not violate the TCPA because plaintiff had failed to reply to the next text stating “please reply STOPALL . . . [i]f you would like to stop all communications from [defendant].” Id. at 3. Put differently, defendant argued that the “stop” texts only revoked consent for the specific thread/topic the “stop” response was directed at and was not a request to cease all communications.
The court agreed with the defendant and ruled that the plaintiff’s “STOP” text “did not reasonably or clearly relate a desire to unsubscribe to all messages.” Id. at 4. First, it noted the underlying regulation was silent on how a do-not-call request had to be effectively communicated beyond stating the revocation had to be “reasonable” and “clear.” Id. at 3. In this case, the revocation was not “clear” because the plaintiff had subscribed to two types of marketing texts from defendant and their phone number was the method of communication for multiple individuals. Id. Under those facts, the court did not require defendant to assume the consumer wished to cease all communications for all individuals as to all topics. While the court found that Stamper “clearly communicated a desire to unsubscribe from the specific type of message that she had just received, on behalf of the client to whom that message had been directed. She did not, however, clearly communicate a desire to unsubscribe to any and all text messages from [the defendant.]” Id. at *3.
The court analogized Stamper to another recent case: Michel v. Credit Protection Association L.P., No. 14-cv-08452, 2017 WL 3620809, (N.D. Ill. Aug. 23, 2017). In Michel, the defendant debt collector contacted the plaintiff about amounts owed on multiple credit accounts. The Michel court ruled a revocation of consent for communication only applied to the specific account the text was regarding, leaving the defendant free to continue to contact the plaintiff about their outstanding balances on other accounts. The Stamper court applied that same logic to the communications at issue and ruled the “stop” text did not prohibit communications about other topics or patients.
All claims are fact-specific; however, Stamper validates the position that callers can treat opt-outs on behalf of different people, topics or campaigns as separate and distinct where that interpretation is clearly communicated to the consumer. It also stands as a warning to consumers in that they must clearly communicate the intentions of their opt-out requests consistent with their relationship to the caller. For anyone looking to design a calling or opt-out protocol, there are complex legal questions and risks that must be considered and consulting with experienced legal counsel is strongly recommended.
