A federal judge in the Northern District of Ohio recently held that text messages are not subject to the TCPA’s Do-Not-Call provision because they are not “calls” within the meaning of the statute. Stockdale v. Skymount Prop. Grp., LLC, et al., 2026 WL 591842 (N.D. Ohio Mar. 3, 2026).
In Stockdale, Plaintiff alleged that she received text messages from Defendants for several years after she placed her phone number on the National Do-Not-Call Registry. Defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that the complaint did not state a cognizable claim under the TCPA because the plain language of Section 227(c)(5) is limited to “telephone calls” and does not include text messages.
The court noted that the TCPA does not define a “telephone call,” there is no clear guidance from the Sixth Circuit or the Supreme Court, and other courts around the country are split on whether text messages may be considered calls under Section 227(c)(5). Id. at *2. Citing the Supreme Court’s recent decision in McLaughlin, the court stated that it must “independently—and without any special deference to an agency interpretation—determine the statute’s meaning.” Id. The court began with the plain meaning of “telephone call” at the time Congress enacted the TCPA, stating:
In 1990, Webster’s Dictionary defined the noun “call” as “the act of calling on the telephone” and “telephone” as “an instrument for reproducing sounds at a distance … one in which sound is converted into electrical impulses for transmission by wire.”
Under these definitions, “telephone could not include modern-day text messages because text messages do not use a telephone to reproduce sounds at a distance.
Id. at *3.
Finding the statutory language unambiguous, the court concluded that text messages are not within the scope of Section 227(c)(5). The court disagreed with several other district court decisions that reached the opposite conclusion. The court observed that several of those decisions either: (1) “based their analysis on a dictionary definition of ‘call’ from 2002—or later” (years after the TCPA was enacted); or (2) “relied on definitions of ‘call’ contemporaneous with the TCPA’s enactment but failed to consider the contemporaneous definition of the modifying ‘telephone.’” Id. at *3 n.5. The court also rejected the argument that mere encapsulation of earlier technology makes the capabilities of later technology (e.g., the ability of modern cell phones to send text messages) equivalent to the capabilities of the earlier technology (e.g., the ability of telephones in 1991 to make a telephone call). Id.
This Northern District of Ohio court joins several other courts that have determined that text messages are not calls under the TCPA’s Do-Not-Call provisions, including the Northern District of Georgia (one of the relevant cases is currently on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, No. 26-10837), the Southern District of Florida, the Middle District of Florida, the Northern District of Florida, and the Central District of Illinois (currently on appeal to the Seventh Circuit, No. 25-2398).
The Stockdale court explicitly recognized that its ruling conflicts with decades of FCC interpretations and caselaw. However, the court emphasized that it is now up to Congress, not the courts, to reconcile the inconsistencies between the statutory language and other potential interpretations. The Stockdale opinion, along with a growing body of similar rulings, demonstrates the continued uncertainty in TCPA litigation following the Supreme Court’s decisions in Loper Bright and McLaughlin.
