Exemptions Archives

Category - "Exemptions"

Business or Residential Number? Court Adopts Ninth Circuit’s Test and Grants Summary Judgment for Defendant

A judge in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania recently granted summary judgment for defendant JR Capital upon finding that the text messages at issue were sent to a business line, not a “residential” phone number. See Newell v. JR Capital, LLC, 2026 WL 2408527 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 17, 2026). While the court did not go so far as deciding, as other courts have done, that cell phones categorically are not “residential,” the opinion still provides a helpful demonstration of how a defendant can establish that a phone number is primarily being used for business purposes.

The plaintiff, Mr. Newell, alleged that he received five telemarketing messages from JR Capital at his mobile number ending in 4132 (“4132 number”). For plaintiff to have standing to bring the particular TCPA claims at issue, the 4132 number had to be “residential” — not a business line. JR Capital sought summary judgment, arguing that the 4132 number was for business purposes.

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Third Circuit Reaffirms Narrow Interpretation of TCPA, Holds State Legislators’ Constituent Communications Outside Statute’s Reach

The Third Circuit’s recent decision in Perrong v. Bradford, 2025 WL 2825982 (3d Cir. 2025), serves as an important reminder that the TCPA does not apply to all automated telephone solicitations. In a case of first impression, the Court held that telephone solicitations made by state legislators when performing legitimate legislative functions for the public benefit fall outside the statute’s scope — underscoring that courts continue to interpret the TCPA narrowly and recognize meaningful limits on its application.

The plaintiff received five prerecorded calls sent by the Legislative Communications Office of the House Democratic Caucus on behalf of Pennsylvania Representative Matthew Bradford. After discovery, the district court denied Bradford’s motion for summary judgment, rejecting his argument that the TCPA did not apply to his conduct and his alternative claims of qualified and Eleventh Amendment immunity. The Third Circuit reviewed the case under the collateral order doctrine based on the immunity claims.

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Texas District Court Rejects “Influence Liability” Workaround to FCC Exemption for Research and Surveys

A recent decision from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas reaffirms the FCC’s interpretation that calls and text messages regarding consumer surveys and other market research do not qualify as restricted “telephone solicitations” or “telemarketing” under the TCPA or its implementing regulations. Although the outcome in this case is a positive development, organizations that engage in these types of communications should continue to monitor and assess the state of the law in other jurisdictions.

In Hunsinger v. Dynata LLC, the plaintiff was a serial pro se TCPA litigant whose phone number was registered on the FCC’s national do-not-call list at all relevant times. No. 22-cv-136-G-BT, 2023 WL 2377481, at *1 (N.D. Tex. Feb. 7, 2023). Mr. Hunsinger alleged that he received a single call from an unidentified caller asking him to visit Dynata’s website. Id. Hunsinger thereafter sent a letter demanding a copy of Dynata’s DNC policy, but Dynata declined and argued that Hunsinger had no legal basis for his demand. Id. Hunsinger claimed that he directed Dynata to place his number on its internal DNC list but that he subsequently received a single SMS text message that contained a link to another website affiliated with Dynata. Id. at *2.

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FCC Acts on Pending Reconsideration Petitions of its 2020 TCPA Exemptions Order

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA) restricts many types of calls to residential and wireless telephone numbers if they are made without the prior express consent of the called party or a statutory exemption applies, but the statute authorizes the FCC to exempt certain calls from these restrictions. In 2020, the FCC in its TCPA Exemptions Order adopted measures to implement the 2019 Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRACED Act). The TRACED Act required that the FCC ensure that any exemption to TCPA prior express consent that the FCC grants under section 227(b)(2)(B) or (C) of the Communications Act, allowing callers to make artificial voice, prerecorded voice, or autodialed calls without prior consent, include certain conditions. Specifically section 8(a) of the TRACED Act requires that any exemption contain requirements with respect to: “(i) the classes of parties that may make such calls; (ii) the classes of parties that may be called; and (iii) the number of such calls that a calling party may make to a particular called party.” The FCC in 2020 determined it would limit the number of exempted calls that can be made to residential phone lines; require that callers making exempt calls allow consumers to opt out of receiving future exempt calls; and codify existing FCC exemptions for certain types of calls to wireless numbers, including calls by package delivery companies, financial institutions, prison inmate calling services, and healthcare providers.

Specifically, the FCC limited the number of exempted calls that can be made to a residential line to three artificial or prerecorded voice calls within any consecutive 30-day period for three types of exemptions (for non-commercial calls, commercial calls that do not constitute telemarketing, and calls by tax-exempt nonprofit organizations). For exempted HIPAA-related calls, the FCC amended its rules to limit the number of calls that can be made to a residential line to one artificial or prerecorded voice call per day, up to a maximum of three artificial or prerecorded voice calls per week. This healthcare call limitation is the same as that already imposed on healthcare calls to wireless numbers.

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Sixth Circuit rejects Creasy line of cases, holding TCPA claims arising between November 2015 and July 2020 are viable

The Sixth Circuit recently became the first federal court of appeals to weigh in on whether plaintiffs can bring TCPA claims for conduct occurring between November 2015 and July 2020—the respective dates on which the unconstitutional government debt exception was passed and the Supreme Court’s decision in Barr v. AAPC declared it unconstitutional and severed it from the statute. Some district courts, such as the District of Louisiana in Creasy v. Charter Communications, Inc., 2020 WL 5761117 (E.D. La. Sept. 28, 2020), have concluded plaintiffs cannot—reasoning that the TCPA was void while an unconstitutional provision was part of it. As covered in our prior posts, district courts have come down on both sides of the issue—leading to significant confusion.

Enter the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Lindenbaum v. Realgy, LLC, No. 20-4252, 2021 WL 4097320 (6th Cir. Sept. 9, 2021), which considered the Chief Judge of the Northern District of Ohio’s decision that dismissed a putative class action arising from prerecorded calls.

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District Court Departs from Supreme Court Plurality to Find Government-Debt Collector Retroactively Liable Under TCPA — But Rejects Statutory Damages

For nearly five years, the TCPA explicitly excluded from liability calls made to collect government-backed debt. Naturally, government debt collectors relied on this exception and called debtors without fear of TCPA liability. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that this exception was unconstitutional and severed it from the statute. Now, a federal district court has ruled that government debt collectors may be liable for calls made prior to the Supreme Court Ruling, despite their reasonable reliance on the exception. In doing so, the court brushed aside due process concerns.

As previously reported, the government debt exception was severed from the statute by the Supreme Court’s decision in Barr v. AAPC. The AAPC decision was highly fractured—with the Court issuing four opinions but none commanding a majority. Since, district courts have been grappling with AAPC means for the statute.

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Two More District Courts Disagree with Creasy

Confusion continues amongst federal district courts in the wake of Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, Inc. (“AAPC”), 140 S. Ct. 2335 (2020), the Supreme Court decision that held the TCPA’s government-debt exception—instituted via a 2015 amendment to the statute—violated the First Amendment. Courts recently have dealt with the issue of whether plaintiffs can bring TCPA claims for conduct occurring between 2015 and July 2020, the date the unconstitutional amendment was passed and the date the Supreme Court declared the amendment unconstitutional and ordered it severed from the TCPA. The Eastern District of Louisiana said the answer to this question is no. Creasy v. Charter Communications, Inc., 2020 WL 5761117 (E.D. La. Sept. 28, 2020). The district courts for the Southern District of California and the Northern District of Ohio disagree, as we discuss below. Our prior posts on this issue, which we have been following closely, can be found here.

In McCurley et al. v. Royal Sea Cruises, Inc., 2021 WL 288164 (S.D. Cal. Jan. 28, 2021), and Less v. Quest Diagnostics Incorporated, 2021 WL 266548 (N.D. Ohio Jan. 26, 2021), defendants argued that TCPA claims arising during the above-mentioned time period were barred because the TCPA was entirely unconstitutional during that period. Both the McCurley and the Less courts disagreed, though the two courts differed in their rationales.

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Northern District of Florida Picks Side in Creasy Split

In the aftermath of Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, Inc.—the Supreme Court decision from July that held the TCPA’s government-debt exception to be an unconstitutional content-based restriction on speech—the country’s district courts cannot agree on whether they may adjudicate TCPA claims alleging conduct that transpired during the life of the exception (i.e., during the period from November 2, 2015 to July 6, 2020). Click here to see our collection of posts on this issue, which we have been following closely. Continue reading “Northern District of Florida Picks Side in Creasy Split”