A judge in the Southern District of Florida recently granted a defendant’s motion to stay discovery in a case involving alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), pending resolution of the defendant’s motion to dismiss arguing that a text is not a “call” within the meaning of the TCPA. See McGonigle v. Pure Green Franchise Corp., 2026 WL 111338 (S.D. Fla. Jan. 15, 2026).
The court explained that “resolv[ing] the issue of whether § 227(c) [of the TCPA] includes a cause of action for text messages by exercising our ‘special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities’” is “a question of law that does not require discovery.” Id. at *2.
The plaintiff opposed the stay, urging the court to defer to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) interpretation of the TCPA and arguing that Congress gave the FCC authority to “fill up the details” and to determine that “telephone call” includes text messages. Id. But, the court, hinting at its likely position on the defendant’s underlying motion to dismiss, noted that “doubling the scope of the provision is not ‘filling up the details.’” Id. The court also questioned whether the statutory delegation provision cited by the plaintiff might violate the nondelegation doctrine, since it arguably grants the FCC broad, unfettered discretion. Id.
This decision follows several rulings in 2025, each holding that “a text message is not a telephone call” under § 227(c): one from the Northern District of Florida (which the plaintiff appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, and then voluntarily dismissed; see No. 25-13358, Dkt. No. 5 (11th Cir. Oct. 14, 2025)), one from the Middle District of Florida (after which the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the case without prejudice), and one from the Central District of Illinois (now on appeal before the Seventh Circuit, No. 25-2398). These rulings reflect the fact that the recent Supreme Court decisions in McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. McKesson Corp., 606 U.S. 146 (2025) and Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024) have contributed to growing uncertainty in TCPA litigation, particularly regarding judicial deference to agency interpretations and the scope of statutory delegation.
