A federal court recently dismissed Do-Not-Call claims after finding that, “based on a plain reading of the TCPA and its implementing regulations,” 47 U.S.C. § 227(c) “does not apply to text messages.” Jones v. Blackstone Med. Servs., LLC, No. 1:24-cv-01074, 2025 WL 2042764 (C.D. Ill. July 21, 2025).
In Jones, the plaintiffs alleged that they had received telemarketing texts about the defendant’s home sleep tests, despite their having placed their numbers on the National Do-Not-Call Registry and/or asking to be placed on the defendant’s Do-Not Call list. (Although they also made passing references to “calls” as well as “texts,” the court found that those allegations were neither well pleaded nor the crux of the claim.) They filed suit under 47 U.S.C. § 227(c), which concerns violations of Do-Not-Call rules.
The defendant moved to dismiss, arguing (among other things) that Section 227(c) does not apply to text messages. That argument flowed from the plain language of the statute, which creates a private right of action only for plaintiffs who have received more than one “telephone call” from the defendant in a 12-month period. See 47 U.S.C. § 227(c). In arguing that a text is not a “call,” the defendant noted that the phrases “text message” and “SMS message” are present in other parts of the statute but are wholly absent from Section 227(c). If Congress had intended to regulate text messages under Section 227(c), the defendant argued, it could and would have done so explicitly as it had done in other parts of the statute.
The court agreed. In doing so, it rejected the plaintiff’s reliance on FCC rulings — particularly In re Rules and Regulations Implementing the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (2003) — which had said that “calls” should be read as including texts. Such reliance was misplaced, the court found, in light of the Supreme Court’s recent deference decisions:
“In an enforcement proceeding, a district court must independently determine for itself whether the agency’s interpretation of a statute is correct. District courts are not bound by the agency’s interpretation, but instead must determine the meaning of the law under ordinary principles of statutory interpretation, affording appropriate respect to the agency’s interpretation.”
McLaughlin Chiropractic Assocs., Inc. v. McKesson Corp., 145 S. Ct. 2006, 2015 (2025) (citing Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 402 (2024)). The court also noted that the FCC’s 2003 ruling concerned Section 227(b), not Section 227(c), and that the more recent FCC rulings simply referred to the 2003 ruling without citing Section 227(c).
Turning next to the plain language of the statute, the court quickly concluded that Section 227(c) applies to calls, not texts:
“Section 227(c)(5) simultaneously explicitly refers to a ‘telephone call,’ a term not defined in the statute itself, and remains silent as to its application to text messages. Text messaging was not an available technology in 1991, and thus ‘telephone call’ would not have included text messages or SMS messages. Moreover, in today’s American parlance, ‘telephone call’ means something entirely different from ‘text message’. Thus, under a plain reading, Section 227(c)(5) of the TCPA does not regulate text messages.”
Opinion at *4.
The court also rejected the plaintiffs’ reliance on the TCPA’s definition of “telephone solicitation,” which includes any “telephone call or message for the purpose of encouraging the purchase or rental of, or investment in, property, goods, or services, which is transmitted to any person.” See 47 U.S.C. § 227(a)(4) (emphasis added). In doing so, it focused on the meaning the word “message” would have had when the statute was drafted in 1991:
“Section 227(a)(4) does not refer to ‘text message’; ‘telephone call or message’ could not be interpreted in 1991 to telephone call or text message…. Again, a statute’s words are given their plain common meaning as of the time the statute was enacted.”
Opinion at *4.
The court closed by explaining that, while it might have been reasonable for Congress to extend Section 227(c) to texts, it would be improper for a court to do so:
“It is not for a court to legislate by reading into the TCPA something that is not there. … It is for Congress to respond to the issues presented in this case and to address the realities of today’s technology (and the intrusions caused therefrom) which is commonplace in American life in 2025. The Court confines itself to its assigned role which does not include legislating.”
Opinion at *5.
The court adopted an argument that careful TCPA defendants have made for decades, believing it to be right, wanting it to be preserved, but not expecting it to be accepted, given the weight of FCC rulings and the deference they would be given. Although this is only one trial court decision, it is one of the first signs that the Supreme Court’s decisions in Loper Bright and McLaughlin have ushered in a new era of uncertainty in TCPA litigation.
