Justin O. Kay, W. Joshua Lattimore, Author at TCPA Blog

Justin O. Kay

Justin Kay advises and defends business clients regarding their interactions and communications with consumers. He appears regularly on behalf of clients before federal and state courts, federal agencies and independent self-regulatory bodies, such as the National Advertising Division of the Better Business Bureau. Justin’s practice focuses on defending clients in the growing number of complex class actions arising under federal and state consumer protection and privacy laws such as the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act and the California Consumer Privacy Act. He is a deputy leader of the litigation practice group.

View the full bio for Justin O. Kay at the Faegre Drinker website.

Articles by Justin O. Kay:

The Eleventh Circuit’s Minority View of Article III Results in Dismissal of Another TCPA Case

The District Court for the Southern District of Florida recently dismissed a TCPA lawsuit for lack of Article III standing, holding that five unsolicited text messages did not constitute a concrete injury. Muccio v. Global Motivation, Inc., __ F. Supp. 3d __, 2022 WL 17969922 (S.D. Fla. Dec. 27, 2022). In so doing, the court applied the Eleventh Circuit precedent in Salcedo v. Hanna, which held that a single, unsolicited text message did not itself constitute a concrete injury.

In Muccio, the plaintiffs alleged receiving five unsolicited text messages from defendant Global Motivation, Inc. The complaint alleged that the text messages did not include the ability to opt-out of future messaging and failed to identify the name of the sender or include the sender’s contact information. The court decided the motion on Article III standing. The mere existence of a statutory right, the court explained, even if violated, does not excuse the need for a plaintiff to allege a concrete injury. The complaint, however, merely sought to redress “inconvenience, invasion of privacy, annoyance, and violation of their statutory rights.” Applying the rule set forth in Salcedo v. Hanna, the Muccio court dismissed the suit without prejudice for failure to allege a concrete injury.

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W.D.N.Y. Court Dismisses Claim, Finding a School District Is Not a “Person” Under the TCPA, Plaintiff Appeals

The Western District of New York in Clark v. Buffalo City School District, Case No. 1:21cv00700, 2021 WL5764703 (W.D.N.Y. Oct. 28, 2021) recently granted a motion to dismiss because the defendant (a school district) was not a “person” within the meaning of the TCPA and could not be liable under the Act. As we previously explained here, this decision creates a significant obstacle for plaintiffs who wish to go after school districts and other government actors for alleged TCPA violations.

Plaintiff alleged that Buffalo City School District violated the TCPA when it called and left voicemails on his cell phone. Buffalo City School District moved to dismiss Plaintiff’s complaint arguing, among other things, that it was not a “person” within the meaning of the TCPA and could not be liable under the Act. The Court agreed (without reaching the school district’s other arguments).

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District Courts Find ATDS Allegations Implausible Following Facebook

Courts in the Southern District of California and District of Arizona recently added to the line of decisions addressing ATDS pleading requirements in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Facebook v. Duguid. Declining to infer that targeted text messages warranted an inference that the sender used an ATDS, the courts in Wilson v. rater8, LLC, et al., No. 20-cv-1515, 2021 WL 4865930 (S.D. Cal. Oct. 18, 2021), and DeClements v. Americana Holdings LLC, No. CV-20-00166-PHX-DLR, 2021 WL 5138279 (D. Ariz. Nov. 4, 2021), dismissed plaintiffs’ complaints for failure to sufficiently allege the use of an ATDS.

In Wilson v. rater8, the plaintiff filed a class action alleging that defendants violated the TCPA by sending him, after a medical examination, a text asking him to provide feedback regarding his examining physician. 2021 WL 4865930. The plaintiff alleged that the text was sent using an ATDS. The court granted defendants’ motion to stay pending the outcome of the Supreme Court’s decision in Facebook. Following that ruling, defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that plaintiff did not allege sufficient facts to support the claim that an ATDS was used.

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Eastern District of Pennsylvania Court Holds Text Claim Satisfies Article III, Then Dismisses for Failure to Allege Enough Facts to Make Claim Plausible

A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania recently concluded that receipt of unwanted text messages in violation of the TCPA can constitute an injury-in-fact for purposes of Article III standing, but nevertheless dismissed the claim (without prejudice) pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) based on its threadbare allegations.

In Camunas v. National Republican Senatorial Committee, the plaintiff (Rolando Camunas) alleged that he received no less than six unsolicited text messages from the defendant (NRSC) asking him to donate to a political party. Civil Action No. 21-1005, 2021 WL 2144671, at *1 (E.D. Pa. May 26, 2021). In his complaint, Camunas described the messages as “generic and obviously pre-written” and alleged that they were sent using an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS), in violation of the TCPA. Id.

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Fifth Circuit Finds Injury In Fact after Single Text Message

The Fifth Circuit recently held that a TCPA plaintiff who received a single text message suffered an Article III injury sufficient to support standing for his claim. In Cranor v. 5 Star Nutrition, L.L.C., No. 19-51173, 2021 WL 2133433 (5th Cir. May 26, 2021), the plaintiff alleged that 5 Star Nutrition violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) when it sent him several unsolicited advertising text messages. The parties entered into a settlement agreement to avoid litigation. After the settlement, 5 Star Nutrition sent one final promotional text message and the plaintiff filed suit, claiming that the single text message harmed him by invading his privacy, interfering with his right to his cellular phone and telephone line, and intruding upon his seclusion.

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Another Fifth Circuit Court to Follow in Creasy’s Footsteps

The Eastern District of Texas recently dismissed a plaintiff’s TCPA claim in Cunningham v. Matrix Financial Services, LLC, No. 4:29-cv-896 (E.D. Tex. Mar. 31, 2021) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

This decision came after the District Court rejected the magistrate judge’s recommendation that subject matter jurisdiction was proper. The recommendation focused on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants (“AAPC”), 140 S. Ct. 2335 (2020), which held that the government-debt exception violated the First Amendment. The magistrate judge noted that, following AAPC, the majority of district courts had held that federal courts retained subject matter jurisdiction over TCPA claims brought under § 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) during the exception’s existence. Those that did not were deemed unpersuasive given that “[t]he Supreme Court in AAPC explicitly found that the government-debt exception in the TCPA was severable from the remainder of the statute and declined to strike down the TCPA’s entire robocall ban.” Further, the magistrate judge reasoned that “[t]he dispositive inquiry lies in . . . [footnote twelve of AAPC]”, which stated that the AAPC Court’s “decision does not negate the liability of parties who made robocalls covered by the robocall restriction.”

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District Court Finds Seminar Invitation Faxes Are Not Advertisements

Recently, the Northern District of Illinois dismissed a TCPA putative class action without prejudice, finding that faxes inviting recipients to attend free continuing education veterinary seminars did not constitute advertisements on their face because they did not promote products or services and they were not sufficiently alleged to be a pretext for an underlying commercial purpose. Ambassador Animal Hosp., Ltd. v. Elanco Animal Health, Inc., No. 20-cv-2886, 2021 WL 633358 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 18, 2021).

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Advertised Businesses Not Liable for Unauthorized Fax Advertisements, FCC Declares

On September 21, the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau issued a declaratory ruling clarifying that businesses advertised via fax should not face “sender liability” for unsolicited faxes sent without prior authorization. See Declaratory Ruling at ¶¶ 9, 17, In the Matter of Akin Gump, CG Docket No. 02-278 (Sept. 21, 2020). This ruling provides some much-needed guidance on the scope of sender liability under the Junk Fax Prevention Act, an issue which has divided the courts.

In 2005, the Junk Fax Prevention Act amended the TCPA to prohibit the sending of unsolicited advertisements via facsimile, absent some excepted relationship between sender and recipient. See Pub. L. No. 109-21, 119 Stat. 359 (2005). The FCC has defined the “sender” of a fax for liability purposes as any “person or entity on whose behalf a facsimile unsolicited advertisement is sent or whose goods or services are advertised or promoted in the unsolicited advertisement.” 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200(f)(10) (2019).[1] The Commission also has observed that the “sender” of a fax is usually, but not always, the business advertised in the fax. See “2006 Junk Fax Order,” FCC Rcd. 3787, 3808, ¶ 39 (2006).

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Court Applies the Seventh Circuit’s Gadelhak Decision and Grants Summary Judgment Against Certified Class

The Southern District of Indiana recently entered summary judgment against a certified class of TCPA plaintiffs because it concluded that defendants’ SoundBite platform did not qualify as an ATDS under the standard the Seventh Circuit recently established in Gadelhak v. AT&T Services, Inc., 950 F.3d 458, 460 (7th Cir. 2020). Lanteri v. Credit Prot. Ass’n, L.P., No. 13-cv-01501, 2020 WL 3200076, *8 (S.D. Ind. June 15, 2020). Our previous coverage of Gadelhak can be found here. The Lanteri v. Credit Protection Association, L.P. decision illustrates that Gadelhak provides defendants facing TCPA claims in the Seventh Circuit with strong defenses to ATDS allegations.

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